MISANTHROPOZINE #4: Car Tuning for Architects

Dear XOXO, We are happy to announce a new MISANTHROPOZINE issue. MISANTHROPOZINE is an art & architecture journal that explores the outer edges and inner contradictions of architecture as both discipline and cultural practice. Each issue operates like a curated detour—gathering essays, artefacts, souvenirs, and speculative theory to probe architecture’s entanglements with other domains. It starts with a low hum. A purr. A glint of steel in the sun. You’re not sure if it’s a car ad or a building reveal. Doesn’t matter. The lines are blurred. The upcoming issue of MISANTHROPOZINE, Car Tuning for Architects, dives into that blur, modifying cultures in which both performance and looks are altered. We will lean into subcultures, into spoilers, body kits, neon underglow, and the language of torque and trim, and see ourselves reflected back. What if the tuning scene, with its rituals and lore, its heroes and hacks, is just architecture with better sound design? We collected stories, travelogues and gossip, and framed buildings like modded cars. And we’re asking: are we just trailer queens too? Is our discipline a subculture we can’t see clearly from the inside? To paraphrase Vin Diesel: I ain’t got clarity, I got family. Inside the issue: Architects in their Cars: 20 architects, 20 vehicles, 20 contradictions. From vintage fetishists to escapists to those who’ve handed over the keys entirely. A Crash Barrier Treatise by Jean Bernard Koeman A love story on Juliaan Lampens <3 Bosozoku Amber Meulenijzer’s Saabolina: a sound station disguised as a Saab A republication of Martine De Maeseneer, aka MDMa’s dotcom bubble office, with a freshly translated essay that still smells like Y2K Wouldn't You Like To Live Here? A playground by Marc Godts at scale 1:64 A visual essay on Hôtel Stok, the house that Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office tuned Aline Bouvy & Xavier Mary: a lecture-performance from the front seat of a Dodge Charger Plus TUNING JAPAN: a special section on the hyper-mediated, hyper-stylized tuning scene in Tokyo: - Tokyo Speed Dérive maps & a JDM pub crawl guide - Initial D tourism in the Gunma mountains - A 3D immersion in Yokohama’s Daikoku PA by Arthur Summereder - Kei truck camper builders vs. German tiny house purists And there’s a gossip section! Architects and their toys. Who’s driving what. Who’s still stuck in traffic. Take care + see you soon, MISANTHROPOZINE