Introduction

Architecture manifests as a space of concealment and unconcealment, lethe and alêtheia, enclosure and disclosure, where its making and agency are both hidden and revealed. As a medium that allows for multiple interpretations, architecture might use what lies ‘in plain sight’ to conceal narratives, a tactic illustrated in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” Servant spaces like those of the hidden passageways, kitchen and stairs of Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria in Genoa, Italy, originally dating from 1593, required servants to move unseen behind frescoed walls. Indeed, there is a critical necessity to probe the ethical implications of how, why and what the architects’ imagination and the built environment conceal to allow for un(concealment). Architectural ethics beyond ethical professional practice is still an understudied and often poorly understood subject. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.