On an almost warm June evening in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood, people exchange greetings over cocktails and back issues from ARCADE’s archive. In a wide-open room—which might otherwise feel cavernous and overlarge—clusters of friends and peers gather to create a series of moments. Some take over the couch or the chairs or even sit on the rug to be close to one another. In another part of the room, on another set of chairs, old and new acquaintances lean in to tell stories over the steady hum of music and conversation. This is Into the Archive: A Cocktail Party, a vibrant celebration of architecture and design publication ARCADE’s new physical space.
This temporary pop-up is called Living Room, and on a different day when there’s no party, you can still find groups of people—working this time, their heads crowded around a single computer, collaborating on designs for the next print magazine, or editing one another’s writing. Interns, staff, and freelance writers alike sit speckled around the space, quiet one moment and exchanging ideas the next. Living Room is open to the public, “a way for the design, architecture, and creative community to connect with ARCADE and each other.” It’s housed in West Canal Yards, a former fish-processing plant developed by Graham Baba Architects into a hub for high-end arts and design spaces. Other tenants of the Yards include the hallowed Traver Gallery; Stick Lab, formerly Lane Williams Architects; and Mango Ink, a boutique printing house.
ARCADE was founded in 1981 by a group of University of Washington architecture students and friends: Catherine Barrett, Susan Boyle, Ann Hirschi, and Trina Deines. It started as a bimonthly calendar of architecture and design events as well as local industry news. Today, ARCADE consists of both a biannual print journal and a digital magazine as well as arc., an online feed of news and essays. This fall, ARCADE will release its first book of essays, Tangible, featuring work from Bruce Rips and Charles Mudede, to name a couple of contributors. It’s a lot to keep track of—they are expanding into independent book publishing—but editorial director Leah St. Lawrence is no stranger to the juggling act.
St. Lawrence’s first project with ARCADE was meant to be a one-off. She was brought on as a feature editor in 2019 for vol. 37 no. 1, the winter print issue. At the time, she was independently curating new media and technology-based art, freelancing in art criticism for The Stranger, and working as an administrator for SkB Architects. Her section for the issue, The Simulated Metropolis, looked into the ways technology is changing our perception of the physical world. It was the same issue in which former editorial director Kelly Rodriguez announced her departure from ARCADE after 18 years with the publication.
In the wake of Rodriguez’s departure, the board assumed responsibility. Lauren Gallow, architecture critic and a friend of St. Lawrence, came on as interim editor-in-chief, but the mental toll of keeping the publication alive during such a turbulent time was high, and Gallow ultimately made the decision to step away. Right when it seemed as though ARCADE might be finished, St. Lawrence offered to take it under her wing.
“I was curious,” says St. Lawrence. “Can I make this work, and how? I was embarking on an experiment, and fortunately, the board president at the time trusted me enough to hand everything over to me.”
The publication went silent for a year, and St. Lawrence was patient. “All I did for an entire year was listen,” she says. She studied the magazine’s history through its books and budgets—“forensic accounting” of sorts—learning what ARCADE was by how it had spent its money and where its energy had gone. This year of watching and learning marked a controlled burn—a death in the hope of rebirth. St. Lawrence likens the publication to a phoenix, turning to ash only to return with the identical strands of DNA.
The withstanding DNA of ARCADE is paramount to its success. St. Lawrence stresses the importance of the brand identity, which can be traced throughout each issue, each year, since 1981. She sees herself as a steward of this brand rather than the owner of it, likening the experience of reviving the magazine to her recent endeavor of restoring an early 1900s-era home in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood with her partner.
“Every conversation with the architects was like ‘If I built it from the ground up, it wouldn’t be this way,’” she recalls. The house already had its own structure and history; her role was not to overwrite but to act as a mediator. “The house is the client,” she says. “I’m not going to move in and pretend it’s something else.” She sees ARCADE in the same way: an entity with its own unique history and voice. The work is about refreshing, not reinventing. “There’s no ego in it,” she says.
Today, ARCADE is better for the time it took to get back on its feet—a demonstration of stability, care, and intention. St. Lawrence sees the publication as just now coming back to its full potential, five years after its phoenix-like death. “Show, don’t tell” has become the guiding principle, whether in the form of the archive, accessible both online and in person, or in Living Room, a space that brings the ethos of ARCADE to life through community engagement. This past summer, ARCADE launched its inaugural internship program: Seven undergrad and grad students from a number of different universities came together at Living Room each week to be part of the program, sharpening their design and editing skills under ARCADE’s mentorship.
“Living Room is almost meta in its concept,” says St. Lawrence. “It’s ‘show, don’t tell’ come to life.”
Local partnerships with Marquand Books, Peter Miller Books, Mutuus Studio, and others have provided much-needed support. Still, its future isn’t guaranteed. While a few architecture firms still take out advertisements, it’s nothing when compared to 2019, before ARCADE’s transition. Currently, zero architecture firms are contributing annual support.
“Are we going to be asking for money soon? Yes, absolutely,” St. Lawrence says. “Do we deserve to stick around? That’s up to the community.” For now, she’s invested in the work herself. ARCADE is continuing to grow and evolve. “We shouldn’t give up on this brand, and it’s my job now to convince people of that,” she says. And the phoenix keeps rising. ■