This 27th issue of MATERIA ARQUITECTURA calls for contributions (essays, articles, critics and graphic reports) that address, from a contemporary perspective, the relationship between consumable cities and consumed territories in order to explore the interactions of global processes of production, distribution and consumption with their impacts in and from urban environments.
Consumable Cities, Materia Arquitectura 27, Guest Editor: Liliana De Simone
What impacts do the global processes of production, transportation,
storage, logistics, sale, consumption and postconsumption have on urban
territories? How do these impacts have repercussions on territories
outside the cities? Consumable Cities aims to gather new readings,
critiques and projects about the place of consumption in the production
of the urban sphere and its repercussions beyond said sphere.
Jean Baudrillard's initial works on the consumer society laid the
foundations for a symbolic and physical interpretation of the act of
buying since the second half of the 20th century. The new
post-capitalist logic that emerged after the post-war political,
economic and social restructuring radically changed the understanding of
commodities and their symbolic value, as well as the material and
logistical organization of commerce in the city. In this socio-spatial
context, the physical infrastructure for retail consumption of goods and
services is positioned as an iconic element of the new society and its
urban form.
Consumable cities and spaces for consumption are phenomena that
reflect changes in the modes of urban production. Their emergence as
icons of the tertiary sector has been pointed out as a characteristic of
the new “post-metropolis”, as symptoms of “postmodern urbanism” and as
artifacts of “neoliberal urbanism” or globalization, to name a few
approaches in recent literature that address these phenomena from the
context of a new planetary urbanization.
This discussion focuses on a shift in focus from the city to the
urban sphere as a fundamental element for understanding the new
territorial processes. What happens outside the city can no longer be
considered alien to its own urban processes. Everything is a product of
and produced by urban consumption: the desert polluted by discarded
clothes, the islands of single-use plastic in the ocean, the satellite
garbage of obsolete technologies that prowl the Earth, etc. Thus, the
exploitation and denigration of non-urban territory, whether to extract
raw materials or discard by-products, is another face of the symbolic
and cultural process that turns the wheel of consumption as a
constitutive act of the human being in the Anthropocene and that is
fundamentally based in cities.
Traditional shopping districts replaced by new stores with kitsch
aesthetics, Chinese shopping centers installed in small towns and rural
areas, the impact of retail mega infrastructures on the urban fabric,
the emergence of darkstores inside disused heritage spaces, the
construction of huge warehouses for the storage of global data in
peri-urban territories, the dynamics of relocation, storage and
distribution of delocalized food, are all possible starting points to
elaborate new views of the geopolitics of consumption, to understand its
relationship with the city and its extended cultural landscapes.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINE
To be published in MATERIA ARQUITECTURA, authors should send their work to the following email address: materia.arquitectura@uss.cl
MATERIA ARQUITECTURA will only publish original and unpublished works. Texts and images are the sole responsibility of the author. The works will be evaluated by the editors and by peer reviewers. Once the articles have been accepted, MATERIA ARQUITECTURA will contact the authors to give them specific instructions on the publication process. The following sections are open for contributions:
1. TEXTS:
Essays, research, articles. The journal is thematic in nature and will publish essays and theoretical texts that are the result of research or specific works. Articles must be submitted anonymously but must include the following information:
> Texts of a maximum 3000 words (format .doc)
> An abstract of 100 words maximum.
> Five keywords.
> Citations, notes, references and bibliography should be
according to the APA style manual.
> Biographical sketch of the author, 100 words maximum
(separate from the text).
> Images, photographs (formats: TIFF, JPG, EPS. Resolution: 300
DPI). Images must include Captions, credits, source and
authorization to be published when applicable. Architectural
drawings (format: DWG).
2. ARCHITECTURE AND CRITICISM:
Critical and theoretical reviews of architectural works and
projects related to the theme of the call. Reviews of personal
projects or works in which the author is involved will not be
accepted.
> Text of a maximum 1,500 words.
> Technical information.
> Drawings (DWG), photographs and images (300 dpi).
> Authors´ copyrights, if applicable.
3. GRAPHIC REPORT:
Visual exploration related to the topic of the call for papers:
> Introductory text, 500 words maximum.
> 8 to 20 images (300 DPI).
