An Architektur – Production and Use of the Built Environment
The journal An Architektur was founded at the beginning of 2002 continuing the work of the architecture collective freies fach – a group that had sought, since the mid 1990s, to assess critically the restrictive reconstruction of Berlin and the relevant political and economical conditions through actions, exhibitions, and small publications.
An Architektur is the exercise of discursive architectural practice. For us, both the critical analysis of spatial relations and the visualization of their inherent socio-political conceptions offer a possibility of political agency. In monothematic issues, socio-political criteria are applied to concrete examples and questions of space and architecture. An Architektur exposes the wider social and political implications of topics which tend to be discussed too introspectively only within the domain of architecture as well as their effect on and relevance to everyday life.
An Architektur is published bi-annually. Each issue contains research material, maps, and interviews, supplemented by writing from our editorial team, as well as contributions from outside authors. There is now growing co-operation with other groups, academic faculties and research projects. Understanding the magazine as our focal product, we continue to develop and discuss topics raised and elaborated there in exhibitions, conferences, and other events.
