June 2025 Editor’s Letter
Practice Matters
Last month saw a flurry of events around architecture, starting with the Pritzker Prize ceremony on May 5, when 2025 laureate Liu Jiakun was awarded his medal at the Jean Nouvel–designed Louvre Abu Dhabi. Many of the guests in attendance then quickly jetted off to Venice for the vernissage of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition. And, believe it or not, a number of the visitors to Venice’s Biennale immediately headed to Milan, for the opening of that city’s 24th International Exhibition at the Triennale. Online or in print, RECORD covered it all, not to mention Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, which opened in April.
While these events, and the festivities around them, are opportunities to think about architecture beyond the day-to-day activities of the job itself, and to connect with peers in the profession, often they seem completely irrelevant to practice. This sentiment is not helped by the air of doom and gloom that today inevitably surrounds any examination of the future of the built environment, or, frankly, of the world itself. “The notion of gathering 158 nations to exchange visions of peace and progress feels naive,” writes Cliff Pearson of the Osaka Expo. “Instead of looking to the future, this Expo seems stuck in the past.” And of the Venice Biennale and its attempt to document the “possibilities, pitfalls, and space-faring AI-assisted freak-outs confronting global civilization in the 21st century,” Ian Volner writes, “I have seen the future. And it’s a headache.”
Is there inspiration to be found?
With this issue of RECORD, which coincides with the annual AIA Conference on Architecture (held in Boston from June 4–7)—and which we expect to be more relevant to American architects—we take a closer look at the current state of practice. At the moment, it seems to linger somewhere between uncertain and disastrous. At press time, the most recent Architecture Billings Index showed continued decline, a troubling trend that began after September 2022, with billings decreasing in 27 of the past 30 months.
On the brighter side, RECORD’s annual Design Vanguard highlights emerging firms that are creating bold designs and shaking up the profession. Not surprisingly, this cohort of young designers is experimenting with new ways of practicing architecture while building a way to a future, not just imagining one.
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