This article develops a theoretical framework for the relationship between the architectural magazine and architecture, understood as a profession, a discipline, and a culture. By developing David Abrahamson’s idea of ‘magazine exceptionalism’ from the field of magazines studies, it offers a definition of what constitutes an architectural magazine, arguing that to be architectural, a magazine must be a site of architectural production, as either a validator in the field of architecture or as an architectural project in its own right.