Season 2: Architecture X Media Studies
Ep. 30: A Publisher's Path
Ariadna argues that books remain vital amid short-form digital media because they are curated, researched, and irreversible once printed. She describes an organic shift from architectural practice, writing, and urban criticism in Barcelona to publishing a book on her late father and then building a catalog-led program focused on architectural travel guides, Indian architecture and cities, monographs, and new mini-books planned years in advance. She outlines the bookmaking workflow: manuscript and material collection, peer review, design/layout, copyediting, drawing and image preparation, print-proofing, and production, followed by the harder work of sales via distributors, bookshops, launches, word of mouth, and social media. She stresses balancing text with drawings/images, calls for stronger writing and reading cultivation in architecture education, sees AI as a useful tool for editing/summarizing but not for generating ideas, and identifies independent publishing’s main constraints as economics, distribution dominance, and weak institutional support, advocating more open forums around architectural media and publishing.
Guest: Ariadna A. Garreta
Designation: Architect & Director, Altrim Publishers
Bio: Ariadna A. Garreta is an architect, editor, and adviser. She has completed her Master’s degree from the Barcelona Technical School of Architecture (ETSAB, Spain). She has been a member of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) assembly, where she has developed various positions for the COAC Barcelona delegation. She has been advising the Barcelona City Council and has been a member of the Barcelona Fundació Mies van der Rohe Board of Trustees. In India, she has been Director at CEPT University Press.
She has been practising architecture with her father, Dr. Miquel Alvarez Trincado, at Altrim Studio since 1999, and she has been the Director since 2008. She has taught at the School of Architecture (EsArq) at the International University of Catalonia (UIC). She used to write for several Catalan and Spanish newspapers and Design and Architecture magazines.
In 2010, she founded the Barcelona-based publishing company Altrim Publishers to provide a new platform for the promotion of architecture and city planning focused on India and Southeast Asia. In 2012, she settled in Chandigarh (India), where she is developing a series of book guides under the title of Southeast Asia & Indian Architectural Travel Guides.
She has been the Director of CEPT University Press (Ahmedabad) and Coordinator at The Aditya Prakash Foundation (Chandigarh). She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of Poornima University (Jaipur, India), School of Planning & Architecture, Research & Consultancy Cell.
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