Are you with us?

In September’s editorial Nicola Di Battista underlines which the ultimate meaning of a magazine is: the luxury of reflecting on what is necessary to better practise the architect’s profession.

This article was originally published on Domus 1005, September 2016.

With this issue of Domus I enter my fourth year of its editorship, beginning with issue 972 and long enough to allow a good look back at what has happened during this time and to reflect on what has been done but also to venture a few comments on what there is still to do.

It must first be said that many things have changed in these past three years, both in-house and – all the more so – outside. A few months ago, Domus chalked up the incredible record of its 1000th issue, the only Italian publication in its field, and one of very few worldwide, to have achieved such a feat. Issue 1000 and the introduction of three zeros into the numbering have, in a sense, forced us to start again from scratch. Indeed, the issue you are reading is already the fifth in this new adventure. During my editorship, the magazine has had to deal with the ideological dross that had filled the design disciplines in previous years, with a chronic, and frequently lamented by us, dearth of criticism. There has also been – as we can now say – an abysmally low awareness in the profession of the necessary action, fit for and modelled on our times.

We responded to this state of affairs by greatly increasing the number of contributors to the magazine, chosen from those who more than others have a clear and precise point of view, from those whose work denotes a stance and from those who best respond to our need to intelligently inhabit this Earth. We have also sought out the services of masters who were willing and keen to listen to us and lend us their ideas, words and works. We have ceaselessly and almost doggedly kept our eyes open for stories to tell, true and not banal ones of architects, designers, artists, entrepreneurs and more, stories of our times. From these we have extracted and highlighted for our readers not so much what they represent today – which anyone can see for themselves by following the news – but how they came about, in what contexts they originated and where and with what means they succeeded in becoming what they are. We believe these stories are worth telling because they are good ones and invaluable today.
Domus continues to recount stories

Another closely considered area is that of education/training, which we regard as fundamental to our future and for which we have spared no effort, devoting much space to it in every issue. We have featured articles on the work of individual teachers with their students and classes, and described individual schools in institutional terms, asking their directors to explain their structures, expectations, ambitions and goals. This painstaking investigation has enabled us to compare the educational offer available and form a more precise and circumstantiated idea of what is happening in the world today in this delicate sector of our collective life. Turning now to contemporary times, we have endeavoured not to paint an abstract picture, never adopting a biased or ideological angle. Instead, we have reported the concrete things, starting with what was happening around us, from the events we deemed of the most interest to our disciplines to exhibitions large and small, and the themes and issues that, at certain times, seemed the most pressing.

In this way, we have covered history and current affairs, tradition and innovation, practice and theory, global and local. This is why we have found ourselves discussing Piero della Francesca but also Piero Manzoni and the Renaissance as well as the 20th century. We have done so in our own way, always letting the protagonists themselves speak, as if they were our contemporaries.

Reflect on what is useful and what is lacking in order to better practise our professions is a luxury that we must afford ourselves
The advancement of our disciplines is a separate matter. In this respect, we believe strongly in the autonomy of disciplines and are convinced that only within them can true innovations and advances occur. We were, however, the first to feel the need to step away from this autonomy to better understand what was going on outside, in what contexts these disciplines were operating, to what ends and which questions they were answering. Looking back, we can say that this temporary departure from the autonomy of the disciplines was a very healthy experience for us. It opened our eyes and we hope it had the same effect on our readers. Now, however, we are keen to dive back into them, their secrets, rules and tricks – basically, into the airtight realm of many certainties and few doubts. Disciplinary knowledge is heavy and static by definition. It changes slowly as it is a formidable accumulation of wisdom and practices amassed over time. We, however, need to change and fast, for we must live today and respond with our knowledge and crafts to what is expected of us. We cannot take refuge in the past nor escape into the future, on pain of exclusion from civilised living.
We, therefore, believe that our magazine’s efforts have opened our eyes to what is happening today, making us more aware of what needs to be done, whilst also telling us why. Dividing the magazine into two main theme sections – Projects and Confetti – has allowed us to focus our attention on actual constructions and on everything needed to conceive and design them. In our current period of global, pervasive and incessant information, and multiple media, being able to reflect on what is useful and what is lacking in order to better practise our crafts, professions and jobs is a luxury that we must afford ourselves – not a waste of time or money, or a deviation from action. On the contrary, it is the linchpin of that action, the essential base on which it must rest. These words have summarily described our work at Domus but it is only right to turn now to the many things that have happened in the world outside in this same, relatively short, period. First of all, we have to note that the spasmodic search for newness for newness’ sake has, at last, fizzled out. Against all reason and common sense, it drove people to create all manner of oddities that lasted one season at the most, at least in our latitudes; unfortunately we know and regret that they will continue to plague other parts of the world for many years to come. Our consolation is that, at least in the West, we have shaken them off for good.

The other circumstance that has so strongly connoted our recent past has certainly been the total dominance of excessive economic and financial power, which governs and towers over all. Its actions, taken to the extreme, provoked a reaction which ever more evidently and manifestly demands change, a new political and cultural power that can guide the future of mankind, including that of its economy, rather than the opposite, on pain of grim decadence. A rebalancing of powers is necessary and indispensable to our peaceful coexistence and most people are acutely aware of this now. These two facts together – a no to the quest for the new at all costs and a no to the overwhelming power of finance – are fuelling a new European sentiment, fresh hope that is encouraging us all to pursue a fresh idea of progress, one so potent and widespread that it disturbs those who do not want this change and are strenuously opposed to it – or alternatively, but it is actually the same thing, would like to implement it with authoritarian and anti-democratic means.

On closer consideration, the biggest change that has occurred in these past three years – we are certain – is the different and quite unprecedented attitude of people today towards contemporaneity. Although we are still trying to eliminate the dross deposited in us over the past two decades, a change of pace has undoubtedly happened and is irreversible.

It had been in the offing for some time and perceptibly so but not yet within reach. It had been sought, hoped for and yearned but was still not viable. The conditions were not right. It was not a collective and shared sentiment, and too many things were holding it back. For this reason, at the beginning of my editorship I wrote that the greatest possible aim, at that moment, was to cultivate continuous resistance and to reach for change in the hope that it might come about. In a sense, it was an invitation to be prepared and ready for when it would, at last, be attainable. Well, in a short space of time all this has, indeed, happened. Today, nothing is as it was anymore. The conditions for change now exist, change so vitally necessary and imperative for us all that we can no longer afford to delay. We knew all this would soon come – it was inevitable – but we did not know how or when. The “when” is self-evident: it is now; as for the “how”, it is interesting to note that the renewal did not come into being at any specific moment or thanks to any established power. It rose gradually from the grassroots, as a shared and, hence, even stronger thought.
A rebalancing of powers is necessary and indispensable to our peaceful coexistence


Now that this change has been manifested as a collective phenomenon, earnestly and loudly invoked, we cannot fail to live up to its expectations. Our actions must shape it, each of us with their own abilities and knowledge. That is why now is the time to act, the time when we count once more and will be judged on what we are capable of doing, not for anything else. Let us come back to our magazine and its longstanding gaze. It is easy to see that the disputes of recent years between the advocates of new digital products over paper ones, and vice versa, have become outdated. Time has resolved the problem simply by saying that it is not a problem at all. It was as long as people were living with the simplified ideology of new versus old, or completely immersed in the prejudice of the latest stunning technological advances on offer. Today, all that has been superseded.

Now that things have changed and we are no longer prey to prejudice, we at last realise that digital and paper can live together, as long as they are needed. Indeed, they can support each other according to their strengths and without avoiding each other as if dangerous rivals. So, this Domus is here and so are we. Our ambition is to share all this with many others, as many as possible so that the change does not grind to a halt but, on the contrary, becomes irreversible and magnificent, sheltering us from any lurking new adventurers and ideologies. We are here and we would like you beside us, in large number.   

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