It’s interesting to see how optimistic and forward thinking architecture for education could be during this time period.
It seems by the 1990s, many attributes that were seen as desirable (open air, windows, single level) were at some point abandoned in general, leading to windowless boxes and long wheelchair ramps between classrooms (at least this was my experience in Los Angeles).
They do actually have relationships with these institutions, and are in some cases likely stuck between friendly relations with their funding source xor showing solidarity with their readers, authors, and editors. https://placesjournal.org/academic-partners/
I get that you'd rather never hear about the war again--probably doesn't affect you materially, after all--but this isn't an "awkward injection of political opinions into [an] unrelated space." They're embedded in it. The extra effort of closing a dialog box doesn't seem like too much of a cost for you to bear in exchange for reading their article.
I disagree that they’re embedded in the Israel-Gaza conflict, or that their funding from university partners is at risk by staying silent on that issue, since it is totally unrelated to what they’re writing about - architecture. To me what this looks like, is extremist authors/editors deciding to use their position to inject their personal political views here. Not everything needs to be politicized, and work isn’t the place for personal politics. I get this has been normalized in recent years with many institutions being politicized, but it needs to stop.
> The extra effort of closing a dialog box doesn't seem like too much of a cost for you to bear in exchange for reading their article.
It’s not about the cost of closing the dialog box, but the indication of poor quality and poor staff that this type of mentality indicates. It undermines the credibility of their work on topics like architecture, when they see fit to bring personal politics into this unrelated topic.
I’m confused why you’re claiming this is a personal politics issue. The journal is funded by these institutions where the protests are happening, and presumably this means the faculty and academics funding them are also the ones being arrested and whatnot. There’s nothing personal about making a statement saying you support the people who fund you.
Yes I would, but I’ve not seen that anywhere. This type of forced introduction of political views into non political spaces seems to only come from one side of the political spectrum.
It seems by the 1990s, many attributes that were seen as desirable (open air, windows, single level) were at some point abandoned in general, leading to windowless boxes and long wheelchair ramps between classrooms (at least this was my experience in Los Angeles).