Thresholds: Before/After, the milestone 50th issue of the journal, directs attention toward the deep uncertainty of our current moment of overlapping crises by gathering essays and projects with historical and critical views of approaching ends, new beginnings, and, of course, thresholds. Essays in this issue examine the events or circumstances of specific moments of anticipation—the necessity of being prior to some imagined future—or specific moments of retrospection—the awareness of a near or distant relation to a concluded past. Lifespans, inventions, chronologies, dead-ends, delays, revisions, revivals, postponements, schedules, inheritances—instances of before/after such as these shape our perspective on the present moment. By looking back, Thresholds: Before/After aims to help the discipline look forward. Thresholds is the annual peer-reviewed journal produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—School of Architecture and Planning and distributed by the MIT Press.

Timothy Hydeis Associate Professor in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture. He is the author of "Ugliness and Judgment: On Architecture in the Public Eye" (Princeton University Press, 2019) and "Constitutional Modernism: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1930-1959" (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). Hyde is a founding member of the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative and is one of the editors of the first Aggregate book, Governing by Design. His writings have also appeared in numerous journals, including Perspecta, Log, El Croquis, The Journal of Architecture, the Journal of Architectural Education, arq, Future Anterior, Architecture Theory Review, and Thresholds. Hyde has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow and his work has previously been supported by grants from the Graham Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the Huntington Library.

Jola Idowuis a master of architecture candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Chicago in art history and sociology. She serves as an editor for Thresholds 50, an academic journal published by the MIT Press. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois and has held different art and architectural positions in Chicago including as an Archive Intern at the Graham Foundation, a Family Programs Intern at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and a Studio Intern for William Pope. L. She has previously completed research on graffiti and public space in Chicago, and the Obama Library. Currently, her research interests revolve around the archival recovery of narratives at the intersections of architecture, art, labor, and familial or community bonds.

Antonio Pacheco is a doctoral student in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture division of the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He works at the intersection of architecture, historiography, and editorial production, and is interested in the spatial practices of governmental entities. His work examines the symbolic, bureaucratic, and professional legacies of public architecture across the United States, with a particular emphasis on the modes of architectural production of the New Deal. Prior to joining MIT, Pacheco worked as managing editor at Archinect and as the West Editor for The Architect’s Newspaper. His writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including ArchDaily, Vice Media, ArtNews, eVolo, and Preservation in Print, among others.

Meriam Soltan is a writer and architect pursuing a master of science in architecture studies in the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is coeditor of the 50th volume of the department’s annual peer-reviewed journal, Thresholds, and is an editorial board member and columnist at out of frame. Prior to joining MIT, she was junior editor and researcher at Dongola Limited Editions, an independent publishing house based in Beirut. In her own time, Soltan explores the role fictions play in shaping the built environment. Her thoughts on the intersections of language, design, and worldbuilding have most recently been featured in The Funambulist and ETH Zurich’s TransMagazin. She received her bachelor of architecture and minors in English literature and art Hhstory from the American University of Beirut in 2019.

Ardalan SadeghiKivi is an artist, writer, programmer, and architect pursuing a master of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work engages different praxis, from Post-structuralism to Cosmism and Information Aesthetics, situated at the juncture of computational media and infrastructure, occultism, philosophy of science, animism and semiotics in several different contexts, including the Web, literary reading, demoscene, and gallery exhibition. SadeghiKivi holds a bachelors in architectural engineering from the University of Tehran, where he was admitted through the Exceptional Talent quota awarded by the National Elites Foundation. He commenced professional stage-acting alongside his undergraduate studies and cocurated and coordinated screenings at the cinematheque of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, exhibiting panels and reviewing subjects such as French short cinema of the 1920s, Soviet montage theorists, and Japanese cinema of the 1950s.

Amanda Moore is the Communications Strategist for the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since receiving her master of science in visual studies from the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) in 2011, Moore has worked as an educator and researcher for various regional and international institutions, including Tufts University, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, and the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf. Moore was also engaged as Visiting Junior Researcher at the Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Moore was also Communications Coordinator at the Dean's Office in MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. Previously, she held the position of Communications and Public Programs Coordinator for ACT in the Department of Architecture. She currently serves as Chair of the Cambridge Public Art Commission, Cambridge, MA.

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