Call for papers

grapho-logics

deepening into architecture’s visual research methods

The growing fascination about visuality is a global trend that has no signs of slowing down in a context in which images are consumed and replaced at the same frenetic speed at which they are produced. The recent impact of AI on this continuous flow only reinforces it and, at the same time, presents the phenomenon as an inevitable fact, with hardly any mechanisms for critical evaluation of all this visual material.

The general shift from text to images could be read as withdrawal from criticality towards sheer visuality, contributing to generate an implied context of unspoken words and concepts that nevertheless determines research agendas.

Almost forty years have passed since Robin Evans’ revindication of the distinctive power of drawings as a ‘medium’. According to Evans, drawings work as translators between architectural ideas and their built result, even at the price of needing to be considered as an autonomous and sometimes contradictory outcome of the architect’s work. The problems of translation multiply when the visual and other sensorial information embedded in drawing and architecture are processed by language, the primal critical tool. The image that opened Evans’ famous 1986 article, a photograph of Jasper Jones’ sculpture The Critic Sees (1961), stresses such problems by suggesting the ironical distortion of vision produced by linguistic anxiety. Critical vision, represented by plastic glasses, is ultimately blinded by words: two gesticulating mouths replace the eyes behind the glasses, the critic’s speech replaces observation.

Observation together with the possibility of evaluating and processing visual information, are frequently inhibited by the need to verbalize, and thus to define, classify, categorize, also in architecture. The tendency, accelerated by communication technology and media since the 1960s, can be exemplified by the compulsive tagging of architectural forms, graphics and images in social media and the consequent abortion of critical analysis. In this context, it is urgent to put the visual-graphical information back at the core of architectural criticism, either as a source, as a tool or as a result of critical research.

Grapho-logics claims the power of graphical, and more generally visual materials to embed and unveil not only the hidden subjectivities and tacit features of architecture (similar to the ones the science of graphology investigates) but also the logics of design, its rational split into parts and processes, the kind of objectivation that allows explicit communication and the advancement of collective knowledge.

The recognition of the potential of any graphic document as beholder of a specific knowledge can be addressed in different ways. One of them leads to fetishization of the original and reinforcement of authorship, therefore aligning architecture with artistic activity. This could be exemplified by what happened in the late 1970’s with the so called “paper architecture”, that ended up entering the very circuits of the art market. Another completely different approach would be to confront these documents with the physical objects they supposedly represent, evaluating their efficiency as tools to envision realities that did not exist prior to them, what in Evan’s terms would be labelled as the “principle of reversed directionality” of the architectural drawing. Of course, if we admit that the graphic condition is intrinsically more open to interpretation than language, we should also be prepared to accept some amount of fidelity loss. Such capacity to leave traces of hidden intentions, uncompleted hopes or simple mistakes is far more easily recognized in handmade drawings. Therefore, in a context where architecture’s disciplinary toolbox is more and more digitalized, any of these two alternatives will need to deal with the role of archives as the privileged custodians of an almost closed set of research materials.

Finally, a third, perhaps more coherent, way of claiming the potentialities of drawing as a primary source of inquiry might be to recognize that visual research methods can generate evidence that other methods cannot. Critical evaluation of any architectural concern can involve genuine graphic results produced by the research itself, bringing new inquiries into the conversation. But is it possible to overcome the fever of the diagram, the routine of the genealogical scheme, or the uniform display for comparative purposes?

The 6th edition of the Critic|all Conference welcomes contributions that critically address the logics underlying the graphic material that revolves around architecture, either through the study of original drawings or the production of new ones that shed light on a work, specific project, building or author.

The most basic structure should present the document under scrutiny, explain the reasons that justify the choice, formulate new interpretations or perspectives stemming from it, support these with arguments or new graphic content and bring the paper to a conclusion.

Papers must be limited to 5000 words, written in English and preceded by a 300-word abstract. Double blind peer reviewing will be carried out in two phases.

Abstract deadline: 5 May 2025

Full-paper deadline: 15 September 2025

Critic|all is an initiative led by the Architectural Design Department of Madrid ETSAM–UPM. This two-days edition of the conference is organized in collaboration with the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino PoliTO, and will be held in Turin on the 29–30 January 2026. This research event aims to bring together both young and established scholars from every discipline dealing with architectural thought, including approaches from history, historiography, theory or design.

All accepted contributions will be included in the digital proceedings of the conference, a publication with ISBN that will be available online. Previous editions have already been indexed in CPCI (WoS). Depending on the amount of works submitted, the Scientific Committee will carry out a selection of papers for presentation during the conference.

You can download the full Call for Papers here.