Editors’ Introduction: At the Threshold of Before and After

Jola Idowu is a current Master of Architecture student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Chicago, Illinois. She holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Chicago in Art History and Sociology. Currently, she serves as an editor for Thresholds 50, an academic journal published by the MIT Press. She has previously completed research on graffiti and public space in Chicago and the Obama Library. Currently, her interests revolve around the archival recovery of narratives at the intersections of architecture, art, labor, and familial or community bonds.

Antonio Pacheco is a PhD student in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art division of the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the spatial practices of governmental entities and examines the symbolic, bureaucratic, and professional legacies of public architecture across the United States, with a particular emphasis on the New Deal period.

Ardalan SadeghiKivi is an artist, writer, and programmer, who graduated from the University of Tehran in 2018 with a degree in Architectural Engineering and is currently pursuing a Master of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He creates computational interfaces that simulate borderline human behavior in the form of software, painting, sculpture, and computer-generated fictions. His writings engage different praxes, from Post-structuralism to Cosmism and Information Aesthetics.

Meriam Soltan is an architect and writer interested in the intersections of language, design, and worldbuilding. She works to explore the design of fictions and how they are manifested in various contexts politically, culturally, and otherwise. Meriam received her B.Arch. from American University of Beirut in 2019 and will receive her Master of Science in Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2022. A recipient of the Berkeley Essay Prize, her writing has been featured in The Funambulist, Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal, Postmedieval, and ETH Zurich’s Trans Magazin.