The scriptoria model privileges the internal metrics of “architecture as work of art”. Its premise is that by bracketing the actual project the proposal and record serve to both formalize and re-formalize the project’s intentions. This returns architectural praxis to a condition where operativity and inoperativity become keynotes to the investigation of architectural biases and subtle forms of ideology. This model opens up collectively produced works as illuminated tableaux for new forms of representation and a return to foundational concerns buried beneath neo-utilitarianism. With a focus on intermedia, the scriptoria project enters into a dialogue with the art world, where architectural projects often take refuge when they have no direct instrumental value. This dialogue permits the re-emergence of proto-avantgarde gestures that may lead to the resurrection of forms of speculative inquiry lost to architectural research.