When we set out to create an issue about architecture and communication, we hoped these pages would offer some timely, and timeless, thoughts on how architecture professionals are both collectors and disseminators of untold amounts of information. We see the word “communication” as encompassing a huge range of formats: not only words, images, and messages relayed in built work, but also myriad intangible gestures related to culture, inclusivity, and equity. We knew this issue was bound up with our own work in the media, and hoped it would shine a light on our internal best practices as a traditional print publication as well.
If there is a lesson to this issue, however, it is that we need to stop and take in the world around us before putting pencil to paper, fingers to keyboard, or face to screen. I paused writing this letter because, at our press deadline, we found ourselves watching an unprecedented tragedy unfold for our friends in Los Angeles. As of this writing, the wildfires there are at single-digit levels of containment, and a full death toll is unknown. Most of us have family, friends, and colleagues who have been displaced from their homes and offices, and more than 10,000 structures have already been destroyed, according to California’s fire services. As this profession knows well, each one of those structures, whether a landmarked building, an elementary school, or a bus shelter, represents a vast amount of history, infrastructure, labor, and resources lost.
Hours ago, AIA Los Angeles Chapter put out a social media statement on the formation of a Wildfire Disaster Response Task Force, and I know many in New York will be devoting themselves to LA’s recovery in the days, weeks, and years to come. While the work ahead seems unfathomable at this moment, the New York community will undoubtedly be a wellspring of support for our friends and collaborators on the opposite coast, as they have been for us in times of disaster. As we contemplate the ways in which the design profession takes part in structures of communication, architects, urban planners, and civic leaders are about to embark on one of the most important communication and collaboration efforts of their careers, as they contemplate aiding devastated communities and rebuilding a city that is forever changed.
When I spoke with Jesse Lazar (see his words on “Architects as Storytellers and Listeners” on page 40) about the unfolding crisis, like many of us he thought about it in terms of the global issues faced by the profession: “We know that the climate crisis will continue to present more intense and acute challenges like this, especially in major cities and places that have not had these problems in the past. Architects are indispensable in society’s response to these conditions, by the innovation they will bring to rebuilding efforts, disaster mitigation, and resiliency, and even more importantly by our profession’s long-standing commitment to climate action.”
As we learn during any unfolding emergency and our workaday tasks alike, communication and the information inherent in it is not one-directional output—it is a weblike system of collection, analysis, and output. Architects are in a position to elevate their own voices and share the value and purpose of their work, but if we have learned anything from this issue and our current times, it is that with that responsibility comes the enormous task of working to understand the broadest possible variety of viewpoints and goals. This magazine hopes to be a conduit for this work, and we hope that the year ahead will allow us to prove our worth as communicators in the community.
I would also like to extend the magazine’s warm welcome to Ben Gilmartin, AIA New York Chapter’s new president, and am excited to see more of his thoughts in our pages in the year to come. Thanks, as always, to Greg Switzer, as he moves into his role as immediate past president. We will not forget his thoughtful contributions to our conversations over the past year, and will carry them well into the future.
