Clip / Stamp / Fold THE RADICAL ARCHITECTURE OF LITTLE MAGAZINES 196X–197X, ed. Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley, Actar 2010.  image editor Urtzi Grau

An explosion of architectural little magazines in the 1960s and 1970s instigated a radical transformation in architectural culture with the architecture of the magazines acting as the site of innovation and debate. Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X – 197X takes stock of seventy little magazines from this period, which were published in over a dozen cities. Coined in the early twentieth century to designate progressive literary journals, the term “little magazine” was remobilized during the 1960s to grapple with the contemporary proliferation of independent architectural periodicals. The terms “little” and “magazine” are not taken at face value. In addition to short-lived radical magazines, Clip/Stamp/Fold includes pamphlets and building instruction manuals along with professional magazines that experienced “moments of littleness,” influenced by the graphics and intellectual concerns of their self-published contemporaries.

Cover published in the book

Images from pages Summa 1, 1963

Summa: Revista de arquitectura, tecnologia, y diseño, number 1, 1963, Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa

Founded and edited by the architect Carlos Méndez Mosquera, from the fourth issue onwards, Summa: Revista de arquitectura, tecnologia, y diseño, was edited by  Méndez Mosquera’s wife, Lala, until its bankruptcy in 1992, when the current magazine Summa+ emerged under Martha Magis (edited by Fernando Diez since 1994). Méndez Mosquera had previously founded (along with Tomás Maldonado and Alfredo Hlito) the influential magazine Nueva Vision (New Vision) (1951-1953), a magazine that produced a rupture with concepts of representation, based on the theoretical framework of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. These ideas in turn helped generate Summa, which appeared during a period of high tension between the university and the government in the region, a period in which many were forced to suspend their teaching. The magazine’s experimental graphic design combined strong visual communication with critical texts under the slogan: ideas cannot be killed. Summa embodied an open structure, documenting a monthly thematic, regional, and international critique of architecture practice and competitions from the perspective of Buenos Aires. The first issue (21.5cm x 29.4cm) features the first international design competition in Argentina for the Peugeot building (never executed). First prize was awarded to an entry proposing a twisting structure by Roberto C. Aflalo, Plinio Croce, Gian Carlo Gasperini (Brazil) and Eduardo P. Suarez (Argentina), which was critiqued in a text by Odilia Suarez that confronts the spectacular ambition of the competition. The same issue includes two contrasting and  controversial entries for the National Library competition, which was won by Clorindo Testa’s team, with Justo Solsona’s team as runner-up. Summa gained broad relevance in the Spanish-speaking world during these years, in part due to the editorial constraints imposed by Franco’s government in Spain during this period. Summa forged its wide influence in tandem with a number of parallel publications. Cuadernos Summa-Nueva Vision, a collaboration between Summa and ediciones Nueva Vision, which realized 51 issues between 1967-70, edited mainly by Leonardo Aizenberg and Ernesto Katzenstein. Summarios (1977-1990), edited bimonthly by Marina Waisman made many influential texts on architecture theory and critique available to a wide popular audience. PELE