Spring/Summer 2014

Log 31: New Ancients recognizes the sudden reappearance of history in the work of an emerging group of architects, curators, theorists, and, of course, historians. Drawing a parallel with the 17th-century quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns at the Academie française, guest editors Dora Epstein Jones and Bryony Roberts present the work of practitioners who explore the contemporary possibilities of history. This Spring/Summer 2014 issue particularly emphasizes drawing that synthesizes technology and precedent, including a Piranesi-inspired digital reimagining of Istanbul and an animated analytic drawing of Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane linked via a QR code in the magazine.

In this issue Mark Jarzombek promotes literalist Pop-Arch; Sarah Whiting speaks on formalism; Jorge Otero-Pailos shoots a bullet through an apple; Sarah Blankenbaker challenges objecthood with perspective; Jason Payne theorizes the Albanian bunker; Zeynep Çelik Alexander probes data as architectural knowledge; Andrew Atwood outlines a discourse of rendering; Urtzi Grau & Cristina Goberna embrace copies; Emmanuel Petit suggests a history of volumetric precedents; Anna Neimark links Beaux-Arts drafting to constructivism; and William O’Brien Jr. explores anachronistic formalisms.

Plus: Daniel Sherer on the tensions between the architectural project and the historical project; Enrique Walker on scaffolding; and commentaries on the King’s Gambit, self-portraits, and drawing spheres; even a proposal for rebuilding the Acropolis ramp. In short, a look into history’s history as a way to circumvent the paradigm of constant mechanical innovation.

This sold-out issue of Log is available as a PDF.