Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
Architecture and Culture

For a Special Issue on
Spectres of Time in Space: Tracing Phantom Temporalities with Architectural Methodologies

Architects Libero Andreotti and Nadir Lahiji have argued that there is “no city that is not without its spectres”.^[1]Memories of contested pasts and aspirational dreamworlds, forgotten historical actors, and ever-looming futures: these are just some of the many spectres haunting cities globally. Spectres influence the everyday discourses of city-building across the world. Residents aspire to, anticipate, or resent awaited transformation; states and developers rush to outrun both imagined competitors and homegrown histories; utopian imaginaries of progress— including those that have been once attempted and lost, as well as those still far on the horizon — continue to dictate both the form and function of the cities we live in. And yet, partly because of the methodological challenges that researching them entails, such hauntings are rarely accounted for in traditional analyses of urban growth, change and crisis. Now, as the economic, political, social and ecological crises of our times loom larger still, it is more relevant than ever to take inventory of the spectral influences governing how we manoeuvre our cities and communities.

We understand these forces as ‘phantom temporalities’, or temporal expressions that may appear absent on the surface, but are deeply present by way of influence. Temporal complexity is central in this study of spectres. It allows for the deciphering of landscapes along the threads of prismatic and often conflicting temporalities that are embedded in our perceptions of space. Over the past decade, a growing number of scholars across the social sciences and humanities have positioned time at the heart of understanding the production of socio-spatial realities for both individuals and collectives.

Situated in this expansive literature on time in/and space, this special issue takes the realm of the haunted seriously as a central driver of urban transformation. It seeks to explore the temporal implications of a city’s spectres, which both exist in and act through the medium of space. We are particularly interested in foregrounding creative, multi-media methodologies that push the boundaries of academic research and knowledge production, and which embrace the affective and phenomenological challenges of studying spectrality in space. When published digitally with Architecture & Culture, authors will have the opportunity to link a variety of audio and visual material to be featured in the special issue. This would allow space for both visual forms of spatial analysis, as well as time-based media such as film, poetry, or soundscapes to capture the rhythms of ephemerality in the city.

Accordingly, along with full length articles, we encourage submissions that reflect on the themes of spectrality and temporality in space through the medium of: maps, plans, models, sketches, drawings, illustrations, renderings, collages, photographs and photo essays, 3D scans, installations, video, film, audio soundscapes, music, alternative archives, poetry, fiction, or more.

We invite submissions which might explore (but not be limited to) the conceptual and methodological approaches of performing ‘architectural research’, which allows them to understand how the temporalities (tempo, rhythm, cycles, continuity, stilling, flux) of the (re)creation of space (architecture, landscape, materiality, adaptation, occupation) are informed by the spectral (hauntings, ghostly absences, phantom presences, dreamworlds, phantasmagoria).

The call asks:

• How do individual and collective imaginaries of urban space create, cement, or transform hauntings in the city?
• How can we understand the trajectories of change within built spaces as spectral processes in their own right?
• How might we approach the built typologies that naturally lend themselves to spectral analyses -- places of worship, burial grounds, post-conflict zones -- differently to the ubiquitous and prosaic typologies -- the residential, commercial, and natural landscapes of our everyday lives?
• How can architecturally-minded modes of inquiry render the spectral realms of the temporal more visible and legible?
• In turn, how can an attunement to the temporal and spectral, push our understandings of the nature of architectural methodologies?

We welcome submissions from architects, historians, anthropologists, geographers, and others who work directly and intently with the built form. We aim to pair articles from established scholars with early career researchers working on a diversity of geographic research areas, case studies, and vernacular research methods.

[1] Libero Andreotti and Nadir Lahiji, The Architecture of Phantasmagoria: Specters of the City, (Routledge, 2018), 16.

This call is open to scholarly articles of varying lengths (maximum 7000 words or equivalent visual content, inclusive of tables, references and endnotes) and visual essays that reflect on the role of architectural methodologies in investigating the intersections of temporality, spectrality, and spatiality. There will be the opportunity to include supplementary, multimedia appendices within the digital publication of the Special Issue.

Full articles will be reviewed by the guest editors on thematic relevance, innovation and evidence of an explorative academic level. After the initial review, full papers will go through a rigorous double-blind peer-review process.

Please select 'Special Issue: Spectres of Time in Space: Tracing Phantom Temporalities with Architectural Methodologies’ when submitting your paper to the online platform.

Expected publication date for this Issue is spring 2024.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article