ABSTRACT
Contemporary architectural journalists are subject to a particularly volatile contemporary media culture and politics, but immediately postwar practical issues of reconstruction3 were balanced with a newfound idealism. The use-value of the professional architecture journal may similarly be viewed in relation to the professional practice of architectural design. Wilson presents the notion of an 'editorial frame' which 'seeks to reconcile the plurality' of journal publication with 'a unifying ethos, a consensual politics constructed across architectural criticism, visual representation and editorial practice'. Different stages in the after-life of the journal follow active publication, purchase and display on a current periodicals rack. The gradual change postwar in architecture journals from the descriptive 'documentation' of individual buildings to 'case studies' incorporating statements from the architect–develops into short essays or 'critical' studies by imported critics or theorists. Different stages in the after-life of the journal follow active publication, purchase and display on a current periodicals rack.
