Volume I in the new series Chora: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture explores fundamental questions concerning the practice of architecture and examines the potential of architecture.

Contributors to this volume strive to uncover architectural alternatives to simplistic models based on concepts of aesthetics, technology or sociology. Seventeen essays explore historical topics ranging from antiquity, with a study of the Roman Colosseum, through early Renaissance subjects such as the treatises of Luca Pacioli on architecture, through to the modern era and explorations on topics ranging from 17th-century Amsterdam to architectural insights that can be found in the works of the poet and mathematician Lewis Carroll. Authors examining contemporary issues seek to explicate the spatial poetics of architecture by invoking other artistic disciplines. Essays in this group include a discussion of the accomplishments of Gordon Matta-Clark, a reading of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and an analysis of the implications of ethical/formal questions in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein for architecture.

Karsten Harries provides a new and long-overdue reading of Martin Heidegger's well-known essay "Building Dwelling Thinking." Donald Kunze and Stephen Parcell consider possibilities of meaningful architectural space for a visual culture, continuing themes they addressed in Chora 1. Further reflections on the spaces of literature, cinema, and architecture include an interview with French writer and film maker Alain Robbe-Grillet and articles by Dagmar Motycka Weston on the surrealist city, Tracey Eve Winton on the museum as a paradigmatic modern building, and Terrance Galvin on spiritual space in the works of Jean Cocteau. Jean-Pierre Chupin and Bram Ratner explore historical themes in their essays on French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme and the Jewish myth of the Golem. Gregory Caicco addresses ethical questions in his essay on the Greek agora and the death of Socrates, as does Lily Chi in her meditation on the critical issue of use in architectural works. A concern with architectural representation and generative strategies for the making of architecture is present throughout, especially in the essay by Joanna Merwood on the provocative House by British artist Rachel Whiteread.

The sixth volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology’s series on the rural countryside (chora) of Metaponto is a study of the Greek settlement at Sant’Angelo Vecchio. Located on a slope overlooking the Basento River, the site illustrates the extraordinary variety of settlements and uses of the territory from prehistory through the current day. Excavators brought to light a Late Archaic farmhouse, evidence of a sanctuary near a spring, and a cluster of eight burials of the mid-fifth century BC, but the most impressive remains belong to a production area with kilns. Active in the Hellenistic, Late Republican, and Early Imperial periods, these kilns illuminate important and lesser-known features of production in the chora of a Greek city and also chronicle the occupation of the territory in these periods. The thorough, diachronic presentation of the evidence from Sant’Angelo Vecchio is complemented by specialist studies on the environment, landscape, and artifacts, which date from prehistory to the post-medieval period. Significantly, the evidence spans the range of Greek site types (farmhouse, necropolis, sanctuary, and production center) as well as the Greek dates (from the Archaic to Early Imperial periods) highlighted during ICA’s survey of the Metapontine chora. In this regard, Chora 6 enhances the four volumes of The Chora of Metaponto 3: Archaeological Field Survey—Bradano to Basento and provides further insight into how sites in the chora interacted throughout its history.

The seventh volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology's series on the rural countryside (chora) of Metaponto is a study of the Greek sanctuary at Pantanello. The site is the first Greek rural sanctuary in southern Italy that has been fully excavated and exhaustively documented. Its evidence—a massive array of distinctive structural remains and 30,000-plus artifacts and ecofacts—offers unparalleled insights into the development of extra-urban cults in Magna Graecia from the seventh to the fourth centuries BC and the initiation rites that took place within the cults. Of particular interest are the analyses of the well-preserved botanical and faunal material, which present the fullest record yet of Greek rural sacrificial offerings, crops, and the natural environment of southern Italy and the Greek world. Excavations from 1974 to 2008 revealed three major phases of the sanctuary, ranging from the Archaic to Early Hellenistic periods. The structures include a natural spring as the earliest locus of the cult, an artificial stream (collecting basin) for the spring's outflow, Archaic and fourth-century BC structures for ritual dining and other cult activities, tantalizing evidence of a Late Archaic Doric temple atop the hill, and a farmhouse and tile factory that postdate the sanctuary's destruction. The extensive catalogs of material and special studies provide an invaluable opportunity to study the development of Greek material culture between the seventh and third centuries BC, with particular emphasis on votive pottery and figurative terracotta plaques.