‘The Absurd’, a special thematic issue guest edited by Michael Meredith, features Michael Osman on the contradiction written into architecture’s origin, Sylvia Lavin on the spatial efficacy of hoarding, Jacques Rancière on the conundrums of art and life, and Lucia Allais on Superstudio’s ‘Salvages of Italian Historic Centers’ , a 1974 project presented here for the first time in English. Further contorting conventions: Simon Critchley contests the demise of utopia, Sam Jacob praises failure, and Timothy Hyde defines an absurd reality.

‘The Absurd’, a special thematic issue guest edited by Michael Meredith, features Michael Osman on the contradiction written into architecture’s origin, Sylvia Lavin on the spatial efficacy of hoarding, Jacques Rancière on the conundrums of art and life, and Lucia Allais on Superstudio’s ‘Salvages of Italian Historic Centers’ , a 1974 project presented here for the first time in English. Further contorting conventions: Simon Critchley contests the demise of utopia, Sam Jacob praises failure, and Timothy Hyde defines an absurd reality. Also Mark Jarzombek on Bruno Taut’s attack of seriousness, David Foster Wallace on Kafka’s funniness, Amanda Reeser Lawrence on the self-influence of James Stirling, Caroline O’Donnell of Karl Rosenkranz’s aesthetic of ugliness and K. Michael Hays and Marrikka Trotter on fictions in recent architecture. Also a comic by Jimenez Lai, a sketch of social orderliness by Jeffrey Kipnis, an overlooked Donald Judd project, tweets from the Bauhaus, a DVD by MOS and more.