The new radical Strelka Press: new writing on notions of architecture, design and the city

Strelka Press is a new, digital-first publishing initiative from the Strelka Institute in Russia publishing concrete (literal, figurative) notions to do with architecture and design and the city (all tenets of the institutes educational programme). In an interview with Design Observer, the editor of the press and design critic for The Guardian, Justin McGuirk emphasised the radical nature of their output as being “something more experimental, something potentially disruptive.” Being digital allows them an immediacy with their messages, free from the costly burden of a printed vehicle, “we’re much lighter on our feet,” he says.

Titles reflect a sideways approach to classical ideas of architecture – The Action is the Form: Victor Hugo’s TED Talk by Yale professor Keller Easterling considers assertions Hugo might make today as to architecture being reincarnate as “information itself.” While Alexandra Lange, looking at those who build information systems, explores the monocultures of Silicon Valley and their suburban tech campus’ as a typology in The Dot-Com City: Silicon Valley Urbanism.

As a resource and between these volumes of new writing, Strelka Press has set itself up to be a “crossroads for critical thinking from around the world,” believing that by providing a “platform for international debate we can be a tool for change in Russia.”