In this double issue of The Journal of Architecture, authors question the power of architectural agency and explore the role of architecture in socio-environ-mental transitions through the analysis of various forms of encounter. They ask if and how architecture has the power to transform entrenched ways of being and acting in this world. Just how much can architecture change and reconfigure existing social patterns? Conversely, how are changing social structures and relationships reflected in the transformation of architecture, and how and what it represents? These questions are, of course, tied with that of the role of 'the architect'. The diversified endeavours in reconstructing, envisioning, translating, altering, and consolidating are interrogated through articles set out to examine architects who occupy specific positions in the history of architecture. By rewriting these historical instances in the light of today's debates, precisely to re-evaluate their roles in relation to unsung influences and relations, unrecognised contextual processes and forms of work, the pedestal of authorship is replaced with the revelation of a necessary plural and multivalent practice - the many and the together in 'the architect'.
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