‘Destruction is no longer the outcome of blind rage, butincreasingly a matter of meticulous calculation. Destruction has becomean alternative architecture’ ‘Cities Unbuilt’ is the first comprehensive research on thearchitecture of destruction. This issue offers a detailed analysis onspatial and social implications of destruction in various parts of theworld and discusses issues around migration and displacement,‘warchitecture’ and ‘post-warchitecture’, counter-heritage, culturalinterventions and post-conflict reconstruction strategies. While architectural records regularly hit the news withpositive developments – even higher towers, smarter technologies,stunning designs, and iconic buildings – the general daily news isnegative: man-made destruction caused by conflict and war and naturaldisasters make up large parts of the news’ content. Remarkably there isno discourse on these subjects within the global professional communityof architects, yet there is a strong correlation between destruction –the unbuilding of cities – and the construction of buildings. In this age of realism destruction marks a dramaticproliferation of the unbuilding of cities worldwide challenging thetraditional notion of architecture as the vehicle of hope and progress.Volume explores the less discussed creative sides of destruction, arealm where architecture and design play an important part. Volumeshows how they are engaged in destruction, but also what optionsarchitecture has to confront these situations. Even in destructionthere is hope. Three Cahiers are central to this issue – Cahier SouthCaucasus, Cahier Kosovo and Cahier Lebanon – framed by a series ofintroductory essays by Ole Bouman, Robert Bevan, Ester Charlesworth,Caroline Arnulf, Andrew Herscher and the concluding creative agendawith contributions by Christian Ernsten and Malkit Shoshan, NickShepherd and Kai Vöckler amongst others.
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