Derivations 8 - The conditions of spatial criticism

This issue of Dérivations is a transitional issue. It is an opportunity for a reflection on the foundations of the journal and its themes of reflection, in supported by an expanded editorial team. Still dedicated to the urban debate, The magazine offers here a collection of texts and testimonies which bring into play the notion of spatial criticism at different scales: architecture, the city and the territory. Continuing the landscape metaphor, the central file of the issue is divided into two parts. First, a panorama, which highlights a series of critical attempts, particularly editorial ones, in urban planning and architecture. questions both their objectives and their production conditions. also seeks to understand how some of those who think and live have made critical posture a vocation, without however attaching themselves to a land or a particular object; how, also, these writing and publication designs their audience and, more generally, their social role. The second part of the file is a path traced in a series of situations concrete, places, in the broad sense, where the critical attitude is manifested. The Can criticism in itself constitute a political proposition? Do stories that take the side of emancipation carry enough weight to generate institutional changes that meet current challenges? This dossier attempts to outline answers to these questions. With contributions by Michael Bianchi, Thomas Bolmain, Gregorio Carboni Maestri, Jean-Michel Leclercq, Pavel Kunysz, Renaud Duterme, Bertrand Terlinden, Will Thomson, Francesca Fagnano, Laurent Demoulin, Allan Wei and Olivier Baltus. The texts are accompanied by the graphic productions of Jerôme Bouchard, Carole Lévesque and Emilien Sallustio.