A+U 500: 500th Issue - Word and Image

With this issue, a+u reaches a landmark – 500 issues since its foundation. That we have come this far is due solely to the support of our readers and others involved in the field of architecture. We are very grateful.
In today’s global information society, the world seems to have become smaller. As the view changes, it seems that creativity and the thirst for knowledge are being lost.
Around 1971, when this magazine was founded, it must have been incomparably harder to gather information about international architecture than it is today, when information of every kind is overflowing on the Web. In those times, one of the pleasures of reading must have been the exercise of imagination touched off by a photo (often a grainy one) or a phrase in a essay.
For issue 500, three editorial advisors have selected the best from among the many brilliant essays contributed to a+u by authors from around the world.
The selected essays are remarkable for their insight into architectural trends of the time and for the inspiration they offer for the architecture of the future. Drawings are presented along with the essays.
We hope that the essays republished here will be read by readers from the generation born after a+u was founded, and that they will find hints to inspire their thinking about architecture to come. This fall, we intend to publish another commemorative issue devoted to visual material from the first 500 issues.Regardless of the 40 years of architectural history introduced in these pages, and regardless of region, we have always tried to introduce the architecture that readers of the time demanded. Without chasing after fads and fashions, a+u will continue its conversation with the best that architecture has to offer. Please look forward to it. (Translated from Japanese by Thomas Donahue)

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