The theme for Cornell Journal of Architecture Issue 13, "Missing," was conceived as the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was still being processed. Following issues that examined ideas around "Fear" and "After," this installment explores absence.

"When something is missing, it provokes uncertainty regarding the permanence of its loss. Even if found, could everything go back to the way it was?" asks Emma Silverblatt, Visiting Critic and Judith Kinnard Early Career Design Fellow, who coedited this issue with Associate Professor of Architecture Val Warke, the Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory.

Silverblatt explains that the contributions included in "Missing" examine the topic "through a broad gradient of intentionality: from disappearances to denials to erasures. The wide-ranging sites of each author's interrogation confirm an expanded potential for the discourse today, translating and making sense of uncertainty, and ultimately, testing how we might communicate those stories to others." 

"In the beginning, [CJOA] was largely an instrument for showing what we do at Cornell," says Warke, whose history with the publication extends back to its very first issue, where his thesis was published in 1981. He has since either contributed writing to or served as an advisor on most of the issues, and has watched the journal's evolution over time.

Continue reading on the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning website.