uncube, hacked?
Uncube, an online architecture magazine founded in 2012, ceased publication in 2016 but retained its valuable archive of reviews and interviews online. Since September 2025, however, a curious artificial intelligence—seemingly fuelled by fool’s gold—has been running the website of what was once a benchmark in online architectural journalism. In a short article, architecture critic Christophe Catsaros reflects on this almost unnoticed shift, which nonetheless casts a stark light on the precarious fate of digital archives in the internet jungle.
Christophe Catsaros
In the history of architectural publishing, some titles fade more slowly than others, and uncube is one such case. Founded in Berlin in 2012 by a team of architects, critics and theorists, this online magazine stood as a remarkable example of digital publishing’s capacity to pursue quality, offering unique combinations of photography, drawing and text that print could never hope to match. An online magazine is, in effect, both an archive and an expansion of the very issue one is reading. The project quickly garnered numerous awards and distinctions, establishing itself as an essential point of reference.
The editorial team adopted an innovative approach, combining essays and documents to offer a broad perspective on architecture. Over a span of four years, a total of 43 themed issues were published. Despite this success, the publisher, BauNetz, decided to cease publication in 2016. To the dismay of readers accustomed to its almost monthly editions, uncube released a final issue devoted to Athens. All proposals from the editorial team to take over the project were rejected.
Even after publication ceased, the uncube archive remained accessible, securing its place as a key reference in architectural publishing. It showed that online publishing need not yield to the dictates of the instantly shareable image on social media. The archive continues to provide a space for cross-disciplinary analysis and reflection through images, as well as dialectical exploration. Yet all this will vanish the day the publisher pulls the plug.
In September 2025, the website and its archive disappeared from the internet, replaced by a promotional page on casino architecture. What at first appeared to be a joke turned out to be the legal reuse of the domain name. The 43 issues of uncube, complete with exclusive interviews, simply vanished, supplanted by pseudo-scientific gibberish generated by AI. Unpublished and unarchived contributions from Zaha Hadid, Sam Jacob, Matthias Sauerbruch, Paola Antonelli, Tobias Revell, Superflux, James Bridle, Greg Lynn and Rebecca Solnit also disappeared.
When contacted about this, Sophie Lovell, the former editor-in-chief of uncube, voiced the dismay of the former editorial team, noting that deleting an online edition is not the same as ceasing the publication of a print magazine. It is tantamount, she said, to halting publication and gathering every copy ever published and sold in order to burn them. Add to this the parody website that has replaced uncube, and one is left with a stark snapshot of revisionist amnesia as a telling sign of the times.
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