Carlo Menon

Research

Subject

Critical Editorial Devices in a Minor Mode: ‘Little’ Architecture Magazines of the Early Twenty-first Century

First and second supervisors

Abstract

This thesis explores the role of contemporary ‘little’ magazines in exchanging ideas in architecture, focussing on the notions of ‘critical editorial devices’ as a ‘minor mode’ of architectural criticism and publishing. It does this through a critical and theoretical study of contemporary little architecture magazines (c. 2008–2021), engaged in a feedback loop with my own experimental practice of co-editing and managing the little magazine Accattone (2014–ongoing).

Defined as self-published, non-commercial periodicals of small circulation (Hoffman et al., 1946), celebrated as critical agents of the 1960s and 1970s (Colomina and Buckley, 2010), ‘little’ architecture magazines are now proliferating, again, in this post-digital age. As a real-time investigation of ‘live’ material, this thesis is designed as a critical ethnography delving into a field of ninety-seven little architecture magazines printed in Europe in the past fifteen years, responding to what has been described as a ‘crisis of criticism’ (Rendell et al., 2007) through two main aims:
(i) To explore the little architecture magazines’ practice of ‘critical editorial devices’ as a way of moving beyond the conventional, text-based critical essay, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the little magazine as a designed, programmed and performed space, at the intersection of people, places, concepts, documents and buildings.
(ii) To theorise ‘minor’ modes of practice as an emancipatory political position to tackle architecture in the present age (Deleuze and Guattari, 1975), and in so doing, to critically evaluate the existing ‘scene’ of little architecture magazines.

Volume I conveys the main arguments through a general introduction and a series of nine essays, while Volume II presents the first seven issues of Accattone, demonstrating how this editorial practice sometimes anticipated and sometimes followed the theoretical and critical findings of the fieldwork. A comprehensive annotated catalogue of the surveyed material allows for further research.

Biography

Carlo Menon is an architect and a researcher in history and theory, with degrees from La Cambre, Brussels (2006) and The Bartlett, London (MA, 2013, and PhD, 2023). His collaborative practice, mostly with partner Sophie Dars, interweaves architectural thinking with frequent publications, occasional exhibitions and continuous education. In particular, he has developed writing and editorial skills, whose outputs mostly appear in the magazine Accattone, which they co-founded. He teaches architectural design at La Cambre Horta Faculty of Architecture (ULB Brussels) and representation at the MA Civic Design, PBSA Düsseldorf.

Funding

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), through the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP), part of UK Research and Innovation.