The architectural discipline is constantly required to define the conditions of its existence. The forces of territory and property attempt to structure a catharsis for architecture as a final artifact measured by a system where value exists in the future, and everything is abstract. Such an opaque moment of compliance and resolution can be rebelled against without building a single thing, where desire is strongest and not yet obtained.
The moment before includes events, thoughts, images, conflicts, interactions, and physical conditions. It refers to the positions, dispositions, and state of mind before the architect says “build.” Its abstract nature doesn’t stem simply from being early but from a potential to develop into all possible states. Such a primary state exists prior to hierarchy, categories, and scales as it deals with reality architecturally and not with the realization of architecture. Observing, surveying, imagining, and drawing are all part of a critical gaze at a primordial state. Architects, therefore, linger on the moment before, allowing them to deal with effect and not with cause.
This issue of Paprika asks contributors to discuss the challenges facing architecture at present through the moment before. Using it as a tool to question how we practice and how we conceive of architecture itself, we ask – what use is the moment before architecture? We encourage contributors to submit texts and other media alike, exploring the moment before language as an inherent facet of the subject matter. Collecting different media allows for varying curatorial and editorial organizations, which may take form first as a magazine and translate into an exhibition.