Cornell Journal of Architecture 10

Issue 10 of the Cornell Journal of Architecture will collect a spectrum ofspecters from the phenomenal to the digital, and question the role and thepossibilities of the spirit in architecture today.In distilling, the small amount of alcohol evaporated during the aging processis known as the angels' share. That is, while lost to us, the alcohol does notcease to exist, but instead is given to - or taken by - the angels.Architecture's own angels' share-the notion of an absent and intangibleother-has too been personified. From Genius Loci to Zeitgeist, the figureof the spirit is perhaps the most fundamental component of architecture,even before walls or columns. Whether phenomenal or conceptual, withoutthis flickering spirit, one might say, there is no architecture. As technologyenables the virtual realm to be inhabited in more everyday ways, the notionof another kind of spirit becomes more present yet more blurred. Thedigital, as architecture's alternate and now flickering specter, skirmishes witharchitecture's existing ghosts.