Having a collection of editorials from a thirty-year-old architecture magazine means having at your disposal the story of an era, one that inevitably finds its reflection within those pages. At the heart lies the debate on the construction of living space, a discussion that transcends the boundary between two centuries—indeed, two millennia—while also bearing witness to the technological and lifestyle changes that have propelled our lives from the mechanical age into the digital one. area has distinguished itself for its desire to guide thought rather than simply document it, drawing inspiration from the tradition of editor-authors like Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Gio Ponti of Casabella and Domus. As a tool for both personal and collective research, the magazine weaves together architecture, design, visual arts, and graphics to explore contemporary living, ultimately crafting its own editorial and cultural identity—clearly expressed in its editorials, which stand as genuine intellectual autobiographies. The timeline (1996–2025) running along the page margins—threading through the entire book as a narrative filament—guides the reader through the sequence of editorials written by architect and professor Marco Casamonti over his thirty-year tenure as editor of area, intertwining with images of projects designed by the firm Archea Associati, of which he is co-founder.

Marco Casamonti is an architect, full professor of Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture in Genoa, and editor-in-chief of the international architecture magazine area. In 1988, he founded the firm Archea (with Laura Andreini and Giovanni Polazzi), which in 2001, with the addition of Silvia Fabi, became Archea Associati. With this firm, he engages in architectural design and research, as well as in industrial design—a field in which he serves as art director for several leading manufacturers of architectural components. He has also served as director of the Doctoral School and is currently a member of the Academic Board of the same PhD program. Over the years, he has taught at the newly established Faculty of Architecture in Parma, while abroad he has been invited as a visiting professor at some of the most prestigious international academic institutions, including Barcelona, Graz, Mendrisio, Zurich, São Paulo, Beijing, and Vancouver. Alongside his work as a designer and educator, Casamonti has carried out an intense process of critical reflection and in-depth study on architectural themes, publishing essays and articles. In 1993, he began collaborating with the international architecture magazine area, where he has served as Editor-in-Chief since 1995.