Perspecta 48 - Amnesia

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Architecture, the most durable of the arts, is inextricably linked to issues of memory, nostalgia, and history. Yet, in this impatient century, the discipline's relationship to the past has become increasingly fraught. The stream of readily accessible information has trapped us in a perpetual present, and our attention spans have been reduced to 140-character bursts. As archives overflow and data multiplies, these accumulating facts lack any theory of significance. Is history still relevant in a media landscape where time passes at an accelerated pace? This issue of 'Perspecta' -- the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America -- proposes that amnesia, often seen as a destructive force, might also be understood as a productive one, that the gaps it creates might also provide spaces for invention. Contributions from a diverse group of scholars, artists, and practitioners explore the paradoxical nature of amnesia: How can forgetfulness be both harmful and generative? What will we borrow or abandon from yesterday to confront tomorrow? What sort of critical genealogies can be repurposed, suppressed, or manufactured to reenergize current practice?0How might we construct counter-narratives, rebel histories, and alternative canons that are relevant to our present moment?