Writing about luxury seems to aim at a critique of the extreme. But in this issue we would rather like to open up a field between the opposition pair of abundance and reduction. A drastic change in values can be discussed in terms of the term itself: While luxury in the Middle East and Asia sometimes celebrates its splendid beginnings, prestigious objects such as villas, vehicles and other status symbols are currently losing their appeal in Western culture. Sharing and urban living appear to be the foremost phenomena of a trend towards understatement. However, this is not about asceticism, but a shift from ostentation to comfort - and this manifests itself in leisure, mobility and (material) independence. archithese asks about the consequences of these developments for architecture.