Rachid Koraïchi | DAAR | MVRDV | GRAS Reynés Arquitectos | NP2F | KAUH Arquitectos | East Architecture Studio | Alberto Ponis | Buzzo Spinelli | Antoine Dufour Architectes | Angela Svoronou

In making the map that appears on this issue’s cover, artist Sabine Réthoré ‘ignored the borders’ and instead traced the routes and rivers that link ‘the thousands of points or places of exchange’. As Laura Lo Presti writes, ‘Visual maps of the Mediterranean have become ingrained in our minds and are accepted as if they show inherent, natural features, even though they are subjective and human‑made.’ 

The framing of this region as ‘the Mediterranean’ is similarly a human construction, with multiple faces and identities. The sea has a ‘dual nature’, as Lara Zureikat writes. ‘It can provide abundant opportunities and resources, but it can also be unpredictable and dangerous, taking lives and possessions.’ The sea is both a barrier and a connection, depending on which coast you stand on.

As a result of political alliances as well as violent conflict, trade routes have undergone dramatic changes over time and transformed the built fabric of coastal cities such as Tripoli. In the context of Palestine, DAAR advocates an understanding of refugee history beyond the narrative of suffering and displacement, to think beyond the idea of the nation-state and imagine non-hegemonic forms of life.

Last year, the Mediterranean Sea hit its highest average surface temperature ever recorded, at 28.4°C. Droughts are worsening across the region, and architects are learning to design public spaces for an increasingly arid climate and to build with salt. Meanwhile, the mass tourism continues apace, pointing to one of the Mediterranean’s many contradictions: the economies that support its coastal communities are also the ones eroding them.

Cover (above) Sabine Réthoré
Sabine Réthoré’s map of the Mediterranean region abolishes borders, disrupting the common north–south axis of typical Eurocentric maps and redacting the often Anglicised or Gallicised place names

Folio (lead image) Baptiste de Ville d’Avray
There are many sides to every sea; the coast of Spain is visible across the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier in Morocco

Keynote
The Mediterranean hypersea
Laura Lo Presti

Building
Jardin d’Afrique cemetery in Zarzis, Tunisia by Rachid Koraïchi
Lara Zureikat

In practice
DAAR
Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti

City portrait
Nicosia, Cyprus
Andreas Papallas and Marina Pasia

Building 
Project Gomila in Palma de Mallorca, Spain by MVRDV and GRAS Reynés Arquitectos
Rafael Gómez‑Moriana

Outrage
Egypt’s coastal encroachment
Mohamed Elshahed

Building
Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France by NP2F
John Bingham-Hall

Essay
The long shadow of Rome
Daniel Reynolds

Building
Parque Jardines Mediterráneos de La Hoya in Almería, Spain by KAUH Arquitectos
Miguel Fernández-Galiano

Essay
As far as the olive tree grows
Elisabeth Luard

Building
Carpentry workshop in Tripoli, Lebanon by East Architecture Studio
Lemma Shehadi

Essay
Salt of the earth
Daniel Bell and Henna Burney

Reputations
Alberto Ponis
Sebastiano Brandolini

Building
Mantinum public space in Bastia, Corsica by Buzzo Spinelli and Antoine Dufour Architectes
Justinien Tribillon

Photo essay
Life is a beach
Angela Svoronou