This issue of Perspecta—the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America—tackles architectural unutterables. In articles and projects, historians, theorists, and practitioners investigate contemporary and historical instances of taboo, aiming to uncover its function in the pedagogy and praxis of architecture. The contributors, asked simply “What is Taboo?”, respond with a range of examples. These include an examination of the relatively unknown work of the Italian architect Rinaldo Semino; photographs documenting the unseen, peripheral spaces of American life; a series of marginalia illustrating certain typographic don'ts in all their absurdity; a study of memorials erected to Maoist insurgents killed by police and paramilitary forces in India; and a critique, by redaction and reconstruction, of Rem Koolhaas's essay “Typical Plan.”

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