The eighth issue of ADHJ: The Journal of Architectural Design and History, titled Heritage Cities on Screen: Urban Imageries in Movies, Music Videos and TV Series, explores the representation of the city on screen, examining how its various elements and spaces are depicted across film, television, and music videos.
The timeframe spans from the launch of MTV in 1981 to the present day. Defining this period aims to foster discussion on contemporary audiovisual production and how it shapes the way we design, experience, and perceive urban spaces today.
In so doing, the ambition is to deeply explore how moving images act as a parallel language that shapes our understanding, and even memory, of urban spaces and cultural heritage.
We invite authors to investigate the presence and use of the urban image in the broadest sense: from auteur cinema and mainstream television series to underground music videos. To maintain a focus on narrative media, documentaries are excluded.

To contribute to this issue, we invite groundbreaking investigations and reflections about the themes revolving around (but not limited to) the following fields:

- Real buildings and urban spaces used as backdrops, and their impact on contemporary architectural and urban debates;
- The representation of different city areas across cinema, television series, and music videos, and how they shape our phenomenological experience of urban space;
- Cinematic narratives as documentation of urban transformation: evidence of buildings, places, or spatial practices that have evolved or been lost over time;
- Real buildings and urban locations used to portray imaginary or futuristic worlds;
- Filmmaking composition and techniques as an imaginary for architectural language and genesis of form;
- Film commissions, location incentives and place branding: the city that offers its heritage as a set and, in doing so, determines what counts as heritage at all.

Requirements, submission and peer review process:

- The participation to the call is open to national and international structured and independent scholars (PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, research fellows, researchers).
- The issue will host essays and articles selected through a double-blind peer review process.
- To apply, please visit the journal page (https://www.adh.journal.mantova.polimi.it/open-call/heritage-cities-on-screen-urban-imageries-in-movies-music-videos-and-tv-series) and submit your abstract through the platform no later than November 10th, 2026.
- The outcome of the selection and the judgments of the peer review will be communicated by e-mail to the author of the article.
- Proposals selected for publication must be developed into unpublished texts, complete with bibliography and images.

Referee:

ADH Journal subjects published contributions to a double-blind peer review process.
The journal employs suitable reviewers to assess contributions for publication based on their background and specific research.