Peter Zellner introduces Michael Kubo as a writer and editor currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture at MIT.

Kubo discusses architectural publishing as an operative device, reviewing books produced by architects and critics in the past century. For Kubo, publishing reveals itself as an alternative form of practice, parallel to and frequently more agile than other forms of production more typically understood as architectural.

Michael Kubo discusses Venturi and Scott-Brown’s “Learning from Las Vegas,” emphasizing the decisive influence of earlier publications by the Smithsons, Ed Ruscha, Herbert J. Gans, and Reyner Banham.

Michael Kubo discusses the distribution and reception of significant architectural publications. He presents the results of a survey he conducted among architectural professionals, academics and students. He presents diagrams demonstrating the recent trend to a very small number of texts rating as significant by everybody, and a great many texts cited as important by only a handful of people.