siza, nishizawa, piano, big, aalto, dhk, twothink, rich, snøhetta, search, zucchi, urbanus, moneo, zumthor, 3xn, chipperfield, neri & hu, kahn, wang shu, tschumi, brodsky

The theme for this issue of speech: might strike some readers as mystic, strange, abstract, and so of little relevance to the rational and practical discipline of architecture. Nevertheless, genius loci – a notion which traces its origins to antiquity and means ‘spirit of the place’ (‘genius’ of place or its ‘guardian angel’ according to an alternative interpretation) – is of the utmost importance for architecture, if only because buildings do not exist separately from place.