isthmus

ISTHMUS, the journal edited by Mark Strong, states that it was started and entirely run by students from GSD with the purpose “to bring to sight written and visual projects undertaken by students that are not strictly architecture. Such work has not been exhibited, published, or viewed through traditional publications […] isthmus can provide some food for discussion among students about design’s relation to culture and theory.” In providing a forum to show “that which is not shown”, the first and only issue of isthmus includes from art installations and essays on the work of Robert Smithson, to well-documented histories of the published canon of modernism (Can Our Cities Survive? compared to The Heart of the City), and discussions on colonialism and nationalism in India. Individually well-selected essays, they do bring to the fore research that runs parallel to those habitually “shown.” However, as a compendium, the editorial strategy is lost, be it by topical interest, commonalities, or even dialectical oppositions. As an editorial project, it gathers publishable material, but as a collection of written and image-based essays, it is not clearly curated.