With all the available means to see buildings — through printed publications and images on the web, tablet (iPad, Android), or even better, videos, it may seem as if you don’t need to actually visit a building to know what it’s about. At the same time that electronic media enhance the visual experience, of course, digital advances allow more complicated buildings to be constructed. Architects such as Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, and UNStudio, to name a few, have been enabled by certain clients and circumstances to experiment frequently with ceiling, wall, and floor planes that tilt, volumes that rotate, and spaces that swell and shrink dramatically. Architectonic results that engage a variety of senses — the kinesthetic, the haptic, as well as the optical — have always existed in architecture. But the new crop of buildings makes a strong argument why it’s essential now, more than ever, to visit the site.

Obviously, experiencing architecture firsthand is best. Nevertheless, since architectural record started publishing in 1891, it has tried to come as close as possible to being there, through words and photos in print, and now also on the web and with video. And not only photographers and videographers visit the buildings. Record’s writers and editors also need to see the work of architecture in person to better convey through words what it is like to be in and move through its spaces over a period of time. We go there not to conduct a functional checkup — just as important — but because spaces worth living in and looking at go beyond function.