Thresholds 53 recognized with the 2025 Douglas Haskell Award
Thresholds 53: Idle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture
Funded by Jorge Otero-Pailos and Thomas Beischer, Thresholds is the annual student-edited, peer-reviewed journal produced by the MIT Department of Architecture since 1992. It is interdisciplinary in nature and in aim, featuring submissions across fine arts, design, graphics, media arts and sciences, film, photography, architecture and theory from emerging and established artists and architects, scholars and practitioners. Each year, new editors for the journal curate an issue around a chosen theme, in recent years, themes have ranged from Heat to Disappearance, Idle(ness) to Record(ing). The breadth of disciplines represented in submissions and thematic curation has led to reception that extends well beyond MIT. As it is distributed by MIT Press, the readership of Thresholds is greater than might be expected of a student journal. Distribution is a significant expense to the journal, particularly at a time when funding across academic departments and initiatives is under heightened scrutiny, but a priority in its continued resonance within academic and professional inquiry into the future of architecture. Presently, Thresholds is held in over 150 university libraries domestically and internationally. It is published once a year online and in print, with approximately 1,000 copies. Last year, Joshua Tan (PhD in History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture) and Mingjia Chen (M.Arch + MCP) co-edited Thresholds 53: Idle which aims to unravel how art and architecture have historically engaged, harnessed, or resisted the concept of idleness across different geographies and in different historical periods.