Redlines is a collection of interviews with editors that make today's most provocative architectural publications come to life. While architecture is traditionally concerned with buildings, materials, and scale, their importance and historical impact are recorded through words, books, and images that are often organized, published, and disseminated. Redlines seeks to understand the pedagogical and design frameworks that shape this process.

In this issue we talk with Léopold Lambert the editor-in-chief of the Funambulist. Started as a blog in 2010, it began publishing regular articles mostly written by Léopold Lambert about the political violence of architecture, in particular in Palestine.

What is the history of the publication?

The Funambulist started as a blog in 2010, publishing regularly articles mostly written by Léopold Lambert about the political violence of architecture, in particular in Palestine. In 2013, it was augmented with a podcast featuring 45-minutes-long interviews (currently 126 of them have been published) with various thinkers, designers, or artists who brought a much deeper understanding to the questions raised in the blog articles In the summer of 2015, The Funambulist became a magazine proposing every other month an issue raising issues about "the politics of space and bodies." 

Who runs the publication? 

Léopold Lambert is the editor-in-chief and the team around him has included so far Noelle Geller, Flora Hergon, Tomi Laja, and Ella Martin-Gachot. We also work regularly with a copy editor, Maxwell Donnewald, and a French-English translator, Chanelle Adams.

Each issue contains a few opening independent articles written by people involved with a political struggle somewhere in the world; this is a way for us to inform our readers with a situation we feel is important, propose a positivist narrative...

How are the issues constructed?

Each issue contains a few opening independent articles written by people involved with a political struggle somewhere in the world; this is a way for us to inform our readers with a situation we feel is important, propose a positivist narrative ("things that are being done/fought for") that can sometimes contrasts with the situation of structural violence described in the rest of the magazine. The rest of each issue is composed around a particular topic that bridges the world of spatial disciplines with that of the humanities and political activism. It can be as much a urban and geopolitical topic ("Militarized Cities," "Toxic Atmospheres," "Weaponized Infrastructure," etc.) as a design and body politics-oriented one ("Clothing Politics," "Queers, Feminists & Interiors," "The Space of Ableism," etc.). The main components of these topics are commissioned articles to contributors who usually not only have an academic knowledge on the matter, but most of the time, also an incarnated one too. Other components consists in interviews, photographs, and student projects, all related to the chosen topic.

Is there any other medium to it but the printed object? 

Yes, the publication also exist in digital version, as well as online archives that complement the blog and the podcast on the website.

How often is it released?

It is released every two months.

It is not an easy job to try to keep it alive while maintaining a high standard of ethics regarding the way it generates its economy. 

What is the long-term goal of the publication? 

I think that it is not lacking of ambition to say that sustaining the existence of the magazine is in itself, an important long-term goal. It is not an easy job to try to keep it alive while maintaining a high standard of ethics regarding the way it generates its economy. Beyond this, another goal could be to have a space of some sort, a library of some sorts, where conversations and events in relation to the magazine could happen.

What has been the most interesting issue in your eyes so far? 

As far as I'm concerned, I think that I never learned more than when we did the 9th issue of the magazine, entitled "Islands." It particularly looked at Indigenous anticolonial and/or demilitarization struggles in small islands and archipelagos, such as Okinawa, Hawai'i, Mayotte, Kanaky-New-Caledonia, Puerto Rico and more. Even within the anticolonial organizations of the continents like in the U.S. or in France, these are not struggles we support nearly enough and it was very important for me that we would do an issue about them. The other issues that I enjoyed even more than usual to curate were issue 5 "Design & Racism," issue 11 "Designed Destructions." issue 13 "Queers, Feminists & Interiors," issue 14 "Toxic Atmospheres," and issue 16 "Proletarian Fortresses." 

What weaknesses does the publication have? 

One of its long-term weaknesses, beyond the obvious economic fragility, is what makes it able to function for the moment: the fact that its editorial line mostly relies on one person. This allows a high productivity but, as time goes by, it would be good to find ways to temper with this unipersonal approach.

We are 100% independent, both editorially and economically...

What is the role of publications today? 

Publications are here to relay, produce and curate knowledge. As far as The Funambulist is concerned, the only important thing about this knowledge is that it can be useful to the political struggles with which it stands in solidarity.

How involved is the affiliated academic institution? 

We are 100% independent, both editorially and economically (the magazine received two grants from the Graham Foundation in 2016 and 2017, for which we are eternally grateful, but these has been the two only occurrences of institutional funding). 

We actually try to include within the pages some aspects of what we call "behind the scenes": what questions did we ask ourselves when making the issue, which (sometimes not-so-easy) decisions we had to make so that the magazine remains at a high ethical standard

What is the most recent issue focused on? 

The most recent issue is called "Cartography & Power." It examines how, just like architecture (which requires plans, i.e. cartography, to be designed), cartography does not constitute a neutral discipline that can be equally used to implement either state violence or resistive endeavors. Cartography is inherently an instrument of power and, as such, it has the propensity to facilitate the violence of military and administrative operations. All contributors to this issue begin (whether explicitly or not) with this axiom and seek for methods of mapping that can serve political struggles mobilizing against the dominant order.

Tell us something someone would not know from turning the pages of the publication itself. 

We actually try to include within the pages some aspects of what we call "behind the scenes": what questions did we ask ourselves when making the issue, which (sometimes not-so-easy) decisions we had to make so that the magazine remains at a high ethical standard (when we had to refused an interesting and exciting printer offer because we could not guarantee that their employees were being paid enough, for instance), what the members of the team at that moment felt about working at the office, etc. This is very important as publication is never just the object and its contents, but also the various political, ethical, and social means and stories of its production.