Filipe Magalhães, co-founder of Fala Atelier, tells us the story of the image chosen to adorn the cover of AA issue 447, "Europe: New Generation", directly inspired by an earlier cover of the magazine, that of issue 235, in the colours of a drawing by Japanese architect Kazuo Shinohara.

“In the mid 1980s, a wireframe drawing would require a long exposure analog photograph to exist. A few architects explored this possibility in Japan, transforming the design operation in a communication manifesto. At some point, it became impossible to distinguish between tools and lenses. Due to their purity, maybe those drawings were more about the project than the built work would ever be.

Today, wireframes are taken for granted since softwares deal with them in a more or less banal way. Yet, we see in them an opportunity to see through the project, like Superman, and thus achieving a control and exploration of the architectural intentions to their full extent. These drawings are more complete than plans, sections or elevations; they are all at the same time, and a bit more. They are as close as possible to what we could consider our architecture’s core.

Drawing inspiration from L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 235 cover (October 1984) by Kazuo Shinohara, we decided to investigate this drawing operation, and it is really a full cycle for us to imagine our wireframes on the cover of AA almost 40 years later. Thank you.”

Find fala atelier among other young offices in AA latest issue "Europe : New Generation" on our new online store.