Accattone
Accattone is an independent editorial project exploring transversal practices in art and architecture through the printed magazine. Both a magazine and a publishing house, it was self-financed until 2024 and was started in Brussels by two architects, Sophie Dars and Carlo Menon, and two designers, Ismaël Bennani and Orfée Grandhomme, joined in 2022 by Galaad Van Daele.
Conceived as an exhibition on paper, each issue is a montage of contributions whose shared positions toward reality, history, and representation resonate with one another. Crossing the methods of artists-as-iconographers with emerging architectural practices, Accattone critically addresses the working document and the changing status of the image in architectural thinking and practice. The magazine has gained international recognition in professional and academic contexts, including the Index Architecture Book Fair (Mexico City), the Venice Biennale, the ICA (London), and the CCA (Montreal).
Since 2013, Sophie Dars and Carlo Menon have collaborated on a practice situated across theoretical research, pedagogy, publication, and design. They teach at the La Cambre Horta Faculty of Architecture and at the Peter Behrens Art School in Düsseldorf. Sophie has developed collaborations with architects and artists, notably at Kanal Centre Pompidou and EPFL. Carlo has developed a writing practice in architectural history and theory and completed a PhD at The Bartlett titled “Little” Architectural Magazines of the Early 21st Century: Critical Devices and Collective Practice, In and Out of Academia.
