Igmade: Mr. Chomsky, what’s your favorite color? Noam Chomsky (laughs): If I have to pick one it would be blue because blue makes me feel good. Blue is also one of the colors of the color-coded terror-alert system of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). . Could be... It is the color of second lowest threat level.. Really? Okay... You don’t seem to be too interested in this terror alert system... Well, I know that it exists. You hear about orange alerts and so on but I don’t really pay much attention. So you don’t know with which colour you have to live in at the moment? No.

The Biennale hasn’t always been the kind of neutral platform it purports to be today. In the 1970s, under the direction of Carlo Ripa di Meana, it broke off into a radically politicized agenda, explicitly addressing the nationhood and politics of three be-leaguered countries: Chile, Spain, and the former USSR. As Léa-Catherine Szacka and Luca Guido write, the exhibitions were transformed into a political device, a crucial apparatus for public confrontation.

Let’s be honest: We got stuck. Stuck in between the business of work­ing multiple jobs, writing grant applications that hardly ever work, overseeing a new (digital) VOLUME shop (which some of you have been finding by now, but there is room for more), making social media posts, and caught up in the bonanza of bi/triennials that happened in the fall/spring (more about that in the next issue!). Then, it got even worse as our/your subscription management company bailed on us by going bust. Still, we needed another issue and fast.

The recently rebuilt castle in Berlin, known as "Das Schloss”, which host the Humbolt Forum, was one of the most discussed architecture in Berlin because of its political, symbolic and financial implications. The German federal government spent approximately 700 million euros to build a "fake castle" as a combination of revenge and nostalgia for the destruction of Berlin's original beauty by East Germany, while demolition one of the symbols oft the DDR, the Palast der Republik.

Architectural practice requires a degree of intimacy and insight into complex sets of forces. While building is architecture’s bread and butter, it’s not always the best format to make a statement. It’s sometimes not even the most appropriate language to respond to a brief. Volume spoke with Reinier de Graaf of OMA/AMO about how research and media can become a vessel for political agendas.

In light of recent political events and those to come in the United States and beyond, we've decided to dig into our archive and pull out some uncannily relevant articles. The first, originally published ten years ago in Volume #7: Power Logic (Architecture of Power, Part 3), is a reflection by Gwenda Blair on the rise of Donald Trump and cultures of salesmanship.

Berlusconi’s role in Italian and Global politics had a great influence, to the point that in 2016, during the rise to the US presidency of Donald Trump, he has been described his political ancestor. The Italian politician owns his political success to his real estate and media companies that created, with projects like Milano 2, a new visual and cultural imaginary for the country. In 2001 Luca Molinari wrote for Volume a piece right before Berlusconi was nominated prime minister for the second time after winning the elections in June.

For Volume #6 Inderpaul Johar wrote 'Neo-money', a piece about the shift in the architects’ role: from designers to facility managers where ‘affordably’ in the lifetime management of a building become essential for its sustainability. Is (invested) money management the most important design factor now?