Intro

The journal ASTRAGALO was created in Madrid, at the request of its designer, activist and founder Antonio Fernández Alba in 1994 and published 19 issues until 2001. The label Revista Cuatrimestral Iberoamericana indicated its intention of periodicity (which was fulfilled in its last 4 years) and its scope or reference, as a kind of Ibero-American bridge that Antonio physically crossed many times and which he also fostered in his multiplied and distinguished collection of overseas friends.

It also had some signs of identity such as a design based on a classic graphic image (produced by Antonio, who also prepared each batch of originals), a certain magazine/book packaging and the proclaimed ideological intention of being a written magazine, that is, without the profusion of imagery that characterises any publication on architecture, and even more so by rejecting the dazzle of that cult of appearances offered and still offer by the catalogues of glossy and colourful photographs. ASTRÁGALO was a written and austere magazine, in black and white, when more with some small help of line images and it will continue being like that.

Since its foundation, it published 19 issues from its Madrid management until 2001.

In 2015 it was reborn in its second stage, linked to the CAEAU of the Universidad Abierta Interamericana, in Buenos Aires, directed by Roberto Fernández, who was its deputy director in the initial stage.

Since the end of 2020, The journal is affiliated to the Editorial Universidad de Sevilla and to the Department of Architectural History, Theory and Composition of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Sevilla, Spain. It shares editorial responsibility with the Centro de Altos Estudios en Arquitectura y Urbanismo of the Universidad Abierta Interamericana in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and directed by Roberto Fernández (CAEAU-UAI) and Carlos Tapia (ETSAS-USe). The new phase of the journal is defined within the production of contemporary architectural thought and aims to stimulate key readings for the debate of ideas in cultures and cities.

ASTRÁGALO is a publication that aims to analyse the thought of experimentation and critique of the current state of the construction of cities and the craft of architecture, eluding the more or less sacralised theories that formalise the evanescent condition of the contemporary metropolitan scenario in accordance with the mercantilist ravages of advanced capitalism and gathering marginal critical reflections specifically those produced today both in America and in Europe.

The initial and current purpose of the publication is to disseminate the work of intellectuals (academics and professionals, new or established) from all over the world capable of offering transdisciplinary contributions that propose a critical analysis of Architecture in its insertion in urban cultures. 

Therefore, the aim is not only to question the banal or ephemeral nature of habitual practices in international metropolitan contexts but also to explore alternatives. Alternatives that evaluate the validity of the building trade and the mechanisms of the rigorous technical and social project, but also of the aesthetic, technological and cultural knowledge that can be considered to recover the social quality of urban and metropolitan life.

The name of the publication -ASTRÁGALO- alludes to a piece of the architectural order that articulates the vertical and the horizontal, the supported and the supporting, the real and the imaginary. It is a small but fundamental piece that unites and separates, distinguishes and connects. It also suggests clusters of flowers, sometimes solitary.

Astrágalo has no publication costs for authors. It publishes in open, digital media. Accepts contributions in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Astrágalo is financed through competitive calls, mainly from the universities to which it belongs.