Objects – TACK

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

ABSTRACT

Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.

Filippo Cattapan

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

View

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

Filippo Cattapan

ABSTRACT

Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.

Fanzine Site writing

Zine

Spridd’s office, photo by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

It’s a morning in autumn 2020, and I have let myself into Spridd’s office. It is quiet and empty. The curtains are drawn and the light is off. I look at the dark computer screens and imagine all the drawings being made, emails sent, conversations had between staff members elsewhere, from their computers at home. Work being made and discussed and planned on digital platforms that I can’t see from here.

Anna Livia Vørsel Spridd

Fanzine Site writing

May 3, 2021

View

Zine

Anna Livia Vørsel Spridd

Spridd’s office, photo by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

Photo from stay at Forskningsstationen by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

It’s a morning in autumn 2020, and I have let myself into Spridd’s office. It is quiet and empty. The curtains are drawn and the light is off. I look at the dark computer screens and imagine all the drawings being made, emails sent, conversations had between staff members elsewhere, from their computers at home. Work being made and discussed and planned on digital platforms that I can’t see from here.

Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich

We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.

Adam Caruso

Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

View

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Adam Caruso

4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich

We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.

Image Series Reflection

Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

Caendia Wijnbelt

Image Series Reflection

June 1, 2022

View

Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

Caendia Wijnbelt

Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

ABSTRACT

This article covers a question relative to the double determination and dialecticity in the concept of labour, as developed by Marx from the Hegelian dialectics. It seeks to demonstrate the ontological significance of the concept to the Marxian thought, a key element in his critics as a path to self-conscience and as a territory for alienation. Through the inquiry on the concepts of abstraction concreteness in relation to labour, it hopes to clarify its employment and epistemological reach as it provides an understanding of alienation as a process of abstraction that, projected in the social relations of production, becomes concrete.

Eric Crevels

Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

July 27, 2020

View

Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

Eric Crevels

ABSTRACT

This article covers a question relative to the double determination and dialecticity in the concept of labour, as developed by Marx from the Hegelian dialectics. It seeks to demonstrate the ontological significance of the concept to the Marxian thought, a key element in his critics as a path to self-conscience and as a territory for alienation. Through the inquiry on the concepts of abstraction concreteness in relation to labour, it hopes to clarify its employment and epistemological reach as it provides an understanding of alienation as a process of abstraction that, projected in the social relations of production, becomes concrete.

Book chapter TACK Book

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

ABSTRACT

In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ. If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976). In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.

Claudia Mainardi

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

View

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

Claudia Mainardi

ABSTRACT

In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ. If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976). In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.

Book

TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT – Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces

This book exhibits an investigation of the remarkable ability to simultaneously occupy two different places.

Eva Sommeregger

Book

View

TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT – Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces

Eva Sommeregger

This book exhibits an investigation of the remarkable ability to simultaneously occupy two different places.

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the bureaucratic management of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) through the lens of tacit knowledge as manifest in an analysis of paperwork and wordcraft. Specifically an examination of the “little tools of knowledge”– the self-evident and mundane administrative tools–reveals the epistemological foundations and specific character of the institute as distinct from and similar to others in the same milieu, and positions it within a larger phenomenon of similar agencies, activities, and groups. Archival documents attest to a self-aware bureaucratic and representational medium in a state of flux as IAUS attempted to accommodate multiple and often conflicting modes of work, funding, and directions in order to stake out a productive territory in a landscape of similar institutes, all of which were competing for prestige, legitimation, attention, student participants, and dollars. An examination of these documents through multiple parallel trajectories that are not strictly chronological mirrors the manner in which the institute functioned, not as a cohesive entity, but as a contradictory one, as overlapping concerns struggled to find priority during the course of its brief history. This archival analysis forms the basis of a counterhistory in which the institution itself is considered as an abstract author in the larger context of New York City and beyond, determined by anddetermining of a variety of forces beyond the individual’s control.

Alex Maymind

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

View

Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

Alex Maymind

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the bureaucratic management of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) through the lens of tacit knowledge as manifest in an analysis of paperwork and wordcraft. Specifically an examination of the “little tools of knowledge”– the self-evident and mundane administrative tools–reveals the epistemological foundations and specific character of the institute as distinct from and similar to others in the same milieu, and positions it within a larger phenomenon of similar agencies, activities, and groups. Archival documents attest to a self-aware bureaucratic and representational medium in a state of flux as IAUS attempted to accommodate multiple and often conflicting modes of work, funding, and directions in order to stake out a productive territory in a landscape of similar institutes, all of which were competing for prestige, legitimation, attention, student participants, and dollars. An examination of these documents through multiple parallel trajectories that are not strictly chronological mirrors the manner in which the institute functioned, not as a cohesive entity, but as a contradictory one, as overlapping concerns struggled to find priority during the course of its brief history. This archival analysis forms the basis of a counterhistory in which the institution itself is considered as an abstract author in the larger context of New York City and beyond, determined by anddetermining of a variety of forces beyond the individual’s control.

Book chapter TACK Book

A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

ABSTRACT

Abstract The legally implemented South African Apartheid city model of the 20th Century very specifically separated urban inhabitants along strict racial spatial definitions as set out by city practitioners and mandated by the national government on top of the existing colonial state model of segregation. These societal logics and legal systems have had a wide-scale systemic phyco-spatial effect on the many generations of urban dwellers who have no reference to patterns of living and space-making outside of this city-model. More specifically, the laws and regulations that carried these ideologies have instilled largely prejudiced tacit forms of understanding of self and ‘other’ that remain deeply entrenched in the spatial practitioners who are trusted to design and make within this context. For this reason, a critically proactive engagement with these harmfully biased tacit knowledge systems is a crucial endeavour across the built-environment practice – especially so in the architectural and the related spatial design disciplines. Such a deeply interpersonal recognition of such dynamics within spatial-design practice call for approaches, methods, and techniques that operate through considered and inclusive forms of practice that are often difficult to frame within the current ‘northern’ framings of the architect or the designer. Instead, other conceptual frameworks such as Southern Urbanism offer a more situated armature to locate these questions and begin an other-wisely based inquiry through these challenges. By thinking about an architectural - or more appropriately: a spatial design practice - through values and actions that are true to the locus of the site from which they exist, on the situated terms of the context that produce them, and through the languages – spoken, gestured and visual – that they are actioned through; the research holds an the potential to reveal other forms of more connective tacit knowledge that exist in these ways of making and maintaining urban spaces. Such an inquiry holds the potential to guide these practices both within the disciplines of the architect and support those engaging with these dynamics to expand their understandings of practice and the ‘Imaginative Geographies’ of separation and difference that continue to shape the post-Apartheid and post-Colonial cities of South Africa.

Jhono Bennett

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

View

A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

Jhono Bennett

ABSTRACT

Abstract The legally implemented South African Apartheid city model of the 20th Century very specifically separated urban inhabitants along strict racial spatial definitions as set out by city practitioners and mandated by the national government on top of the existing colonial state model of segregation. These societal logics and legal systems have had a wide-scale systemic phyco-spatial effect on the many generations of urban dwellers who have no reference to patterns of living and space-making outside of this city-model. More specifically, the laws and regulations that carried these ideologies have instilled largely prejudiced tacit forms of understanding of self and ‘other’ that remain deeply entrenched in the spatial practitioners who are trusted to design and make within this context. For this reason, a critically proactive engagement with these harmfully biased tacit knowledge systems is a crucial endeavour across the built-environment practice – especially so in the architectural and the related spatial design disciplines. Such a deeply interpersonal recognition of such dynamics within spatial-design practice call for approaches, methods, and techniques that operate through considered and inclusive forms of practice that are often difficult to frame within the current ‘northern’ framings of the architect or the designer. Instead, other conceptual frameworks such as Southern Urbanism offer a more situated armature to locate these questions and begin an other-wisely based inquiry through these challenges. By thinking about an architectural - or more appropriately: a spatial design practice - through values and actions that are true to the locus of the site from which they exist, on the situated terms of the context that produce them, and through the languages – spoken, gestured and visual – that they are actioned through; the research holds an the potential to reveal other forms of more connective tacit knowledge that exist in these ways of making and maintaining urban spaces. Such an inquiry holds the potential to guide these practices both within the disciplines of the architect and support those engaging with these dynamics to expand their understandings of practice and the ‘Imaginative Geographies’ of separation and difference that continue to shape the post-Apartheid and post-Colonial cities of South Africa.

Essay

Performing Space Through Photography

AA394585 cucina 314 420 300 3703 4961 RGB

Photography used as a tool within the architectural design process has been little studied so far. Yet, since photography implies a discourse in itself, it may turn out as being far more than a tool. By comparing two major examples the essay wants to show how the use of photography allows architects to rather perform their design ideas than merely represent them, and how the traditional architectural discourse –in particular modernism vs. postmodernism– becomes challenged. On the one hand there is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who pasted various photographs from newspapers and magazines in his design drawings furnishing them with an extraordinary modern atmosphere. But, as a consequence, the inherent dislocation of space and time shifts slightly the whole collage into what almost might be called a postmodern simulacrum. On the other hand there is Paolo Portoghesi who always wanted to overcome modernism’s ignorance towards architecture’s past. Despite the fact that photography has been considered as the modernist way of seeing the world, he exemplified this position by publishing a series of books on baroque architecture in Italy, equipped with compelling photographs taken by himself. They carry the reader off into the rich and tempting world of Roman baroque applying all available means of modernist photographic techniques and tricks. It will be shown that the modernist Mies and the postmodernist Portoghesi use similar visual material and techniques, but the way their photographic techniques are embedded in the broader visual discourse shifts their meaning from “seeing photographically” to the “photographic gaze”.

Angelika Schnell

Essay

View

Performing Space Through Photography

Angelika Schnell

AA394585 cucina 314 420 300 3703 4961 RGB

Photography used as a tool within the architectural design process has been little studied so far. Yet, since photography implies a discourse in itself, it may turn out as being far more than a tool. By comparing two major examples the essay wants to show how the use of photography allows architects to rather perform their design ideas than merely represent them, and how the traditional architectural discourse –in particular modernism vs. postmodernism– becomes challenged. On the one hand there is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who pasted various photographs from newspapers and magazines in his design drawings furnishing them with an extraordinary modern atmosphere. But, as a consequence, the inherent dislocation of space and time shifts slightly the whole collage into what almost might be called a postmodern simulacrum. On the other hand there is Paolo Portoghesi who always wanted to overcome modernism’s ignorance towards architecture’s past. Despite the fact that photography has been considered as the modernist way of seeing the world, he exemplified this position by publishing a series of books on baroque architecture in Italy, equipped with compelling photographs taken by himself. They carry the reader off into the rich and tempting world of Roman baroque applying all available means of modernist photographic techniques and tricks. It will be shown that the modernist Mies and the postmodernist Portoghesi use similar visual material and techniques, but the way their photographic techniques are embedded in the broader visual discourse shifts their meaning from “seeing photographically” to the “photographic gaze”.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Arteplagemodell Biel, Mst. 1:1500. Forum und Expopark. 26 x 115 x 80 cm. Ist Teil von: Architekturmodell. Arteplagemodelle der Direction artistique (Leitung: Pipilotti Rist). Herstellung: Koeppel & Martinez (bis 2003) (Modellbauer: LM-108202.1: Gn�nger LM-108202.2: Krpan Knopfel LM-108202.3: Kamm). April 1998. 26 x 113 x 80 cm.

A good example is the Swiss national Expo 02 that aimed to explore Switzerland’s identity under the banner ‘Nature and Artificiality’. During the preparatory phase, which lasted ten years, countless concepts were tested. In this phase, models often had the role of negotiating between organisers and the public.

Maxime Zaugg

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

View

Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Maxime Zaugg

Arteplagemodell Biel, Mst. 1:1500. Forum und Expopark. 26 x 115 x 80 cm. Ist Teil von: Architekturmodell. Arteplagemodelle der Direction artistique (Leitung: Pipilotti Rist). Herstellung: Koeppel & Martinez (bis 2003) (Modellbauer: LM-108202.1: Gn�nger LM-108202.2: Krpan Knopfel LM-108202.3: Kamm). April 1998. 26 x 113 x 80 cm.

A good example is the Swiss national Expo 02 that aimed to explore Switzerland’s identity under the banner ‘Nature and Artificiality’. During the preparatory phase, which lasted ten years, countless concepts were tested. In this phase, models often had the role of negotiating between organisers and the public.

Case Study Review

Exploring The Infra-thin

Paula Strunden

Case Study Review

View

Exploring The Infra-thin

Paula Strunden

Reflection Video

TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

During the 20th century, summer schools emerged as influential moments of encounter and collaboration between students and teachers from diverse cultural contexts. Yet despite their persistence and prominence, there has been relatively little exploration of their role in architectural culture and education. Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge, a summer school about the tacit dimension of summer schools held at Het Nieuwe Instituut in September 2021, set out to fill this gap. The event formed part of the ongoing collaboration between the institute and the Horizons 2020 Innovative Training Network: TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing.

Hamish Lonergan Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)

Reflection Video

September 1, 2021

View

TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

Hamish Lonergan Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)

During the 20th century, summer schools emerged as influential moments of encounter and collaboration between students and teachers from diverse cultural contexts. Yet despite their persistence and prominence, there has been relatively little exploration of their role in architectural culture and education. Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge, a summer school about the tacit dimension of summer schools held at Het Nieuwe Instituut in September 2021, set out to fill this gap. The event formed part of the ongoing collaboration between the institute and the Horizons 2020 Innovative Training Network: TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

The stool called WALDE

In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.

Irmgard Frank

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

View

The stool called WALDE

Irmgard Frank

In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.

Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.

Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio

Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

View

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio

This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.

Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

July 4, 2023

View

On Twists and Turns. Architecture: Design and Judgment

Hans Teerds

Herman Hertzberger, Sketch Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid, The Hague, The Netherlands, August 1984

Herman Hertzberger, Sketch Chassé Theatre, Breda, The Netherlands, March 14, 1992

ABSTRACT

Architects design in different ways, but rarely in the form of waiting for a singular hunch. Most often, instead, designing is hard work, reassessing material again and again, until the moment the various facets come together convincingly. In this paper, I use Hannah Arendt’s discussion of judgment in order to understand the process of design. Arendt borrows her understanding from Immanuel Kant, but draws it out of his aesthetic perspective and reassesses it into a political context. She emphasizes how a community is a necessary prerequisite for every judgment made. It is not enough to simply hear what others say, but one need to be able to think from that particular situation, in order to judge the validity of that perspective. I see a parallel here with design, though architects operate in different communities. The main challenge of design then is to connect these communities through the design and to understand what kind of information and knowledge can be gained within the different communities. By drawing the parallel, I will discuss the different knowledge communities wherein architects operate, and how 'judgment' offers a model of activating various knowledge systems.

Book

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.

Korinna Zinovia Weber

Book

October 20, 2023

View

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

Korinna Zinovia Weber

The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.

Exhibition Image TACK Exhibition Object

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

Peter Märkli, two single-family houses in Azmoos, photos from 2002. © gta Archives / ETH Zurich, Heinrich Helfenstein, © gta Archive

Swiss architectural photographer Heinrich Helfenstein (1946-2020) trained as a linguist, his approach shaped by semiology and post-structuralism.

Irina Davidovici Ziu Bruckmann

Exhibition Image TACK Exhibition Object

View

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

Irina Davidovici Ziu Bruckmann

Peter Märkli, two single-family houses in Azmoos, photos from 2002. © gta Archives / ETH Zurich, Heinrich Helfenstein, © gta Archive

Swiss architectural photographer Heinrich Helfenstein (1946-2020) trained as a linguist, his approach shaped by semiology and post-structuralism.

Online Teaching Module

Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

Caendia Wijnbelt Margitta Buchert Leibniz Universität Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences

Online Teaching Module

February 1, 2023

View

Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

Caendia Wijnbelt Margitta Buchert Leibniz Universität Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences

Lecture / Talk Video

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

Lecture / Talk Video

July 23, 2020

View

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.

ABSTRACT

An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

View

Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.

Figure 2 Pages from Hulusi Güngör’s How to Build Cities, Istanbul, 1969.

Figure 5 Doğan Kuban on a trip from Istanbul to Diyarbakır with his students

ABSTRACT

An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.

Presentation TACK Exhibition Object

Infra-thin Magick

The performative extended reality model "Infra-thin Magick" allows you to experience how such insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting your multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. It invites you to co-create embodied spatiality through active participation and play.

Paula Strunden

Presentation TACK Exhibition Object

View

Infra-thin Magick

Paula Strunden

The performative extended reality model "Infra-thin Magick" allows you to experience how such insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting your multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. It invites you to co-create embodied spatiality through active participation and play.

Essay

Designing space through motion pictures

Eva Sommeregger reflects on the winter semester 2013/14 at ABKW, where animation technology was used in the HTC design studio “Play Architecture” to design spatiality.

Eva Sommeregger

Essay

View

Designing space through motion pictures

Eva Sommeregger

Eva Sommeregger reflects on the winter semester 2013/14 at ABKW, where animation technology was used in the HTC design studio “Play Architecture” to design spatiality.

Lecture / Talk Video

Tacit knowledge and the locus of legitimate interpretation

Harry Collins

Lecture / Talk Video

June 20, 2023

View

Tacit knowledge and the locus of legitimate interpretation

Harry Collins

Presentation Video

Presentation: (Un)Programming the Factory: Weaving Panopticon Stories

Fernando P. Ferreira presents his paper from the TACK Final Conference in this video.

Fernando Ferreira

Presentation Video

View

Presentation: (Un)Programming the Factory: Weaving Panopticon Stories

Fernando Ferreira

Fernando P. Ferreira presents his paper from the TACK Final Conference in this video.

Paper Session VECTORS Site writing TACK Conference Proceedings

Revealing the tacit: a critical spatial practice based on walking and re/presenting

ABSTRACT

Spatial practices that investigate architectural space with the ideal architect's eye and a commonplace representational perspective have been the subject of a lot of writing. The potential of critical spatial practices, which combine performative actions with incomplete representation possibilities, to investigate and reveal the tacit knowledge underlying space is yet unexplored. This paper finds its problem in these missing pieces in the literature and tries to decipher by deconstructing the conventional methods and tactics it criticizes, a way is sought to trigger the creative potentials of the relationship between body and space that cannot be stable. Critical spatial practices can be situated as alternative ways of understanding the architectural space and establishing a dialogue with it since they pave the way for new kinds of relationships to emerge between the subject and the space. This study focuses on the act of walking, which is claimed to be a critical spatial practice, and its re/presentation, which is argued to reveal tacit knowledge in the walked place. Based on the poststructuralist critical theories, the case study was carried out in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul in the Khans District by walking and extracting the things which can reveal tacit knowledge. By finding top-down investigation and representation tools problematic in capturing and expressing the body and space interactions, experiences, and experimentation on the ground level, I believe walking by drifting through the invisible spaces and transitions of the Khans District when viewed from above is meaningful in expressing the experimental and creative flows on the ground level. Depending on the re/presentation, it can be suggested that performing a spatial practice with the participation of the body and interpreting the architectural space from a critical position carry the contingency of uncovering tacit knowledge.

Nilsu Altunok

Paper Session VECTORS Site writing TACK Conference Proceedings

View

Revealing the tacit: a critical spatial practice based on walking and re/presenting

Nilsu Altunok

ABSTRACT

Spatial practices that investigate architectural space with the ideal architect's eye and a commonplace representational perspective have been the subject of a lot of writing. The potential of critical spatial practices, which combine performative actions with incomplete representation possibilities, to investigate and reveal the tacit knowledge underlying space is yet unexplored. This paper finds its problem in these missing pieces in the literature and tries to decipher by deconstructing the conventional methods and tactics it criticizes, a way is sought to trigger the creative potentials of the relationship between body and space that cannot be stable. Critical spatial practices can be situated as alternative ways of understanding the architectural space and establishing a dialogue with it since they pave the way for new kinds of relationships to emerge between the subject and the space. This study focuses on the act of walking, which is claimed to be a critical spatial practice, and its re/presentation, which is argued to reveal tacit knowledge in the walked place. Based on the poststructuralist critical theories, the case study was carried out in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul in the Khans District by walking and extracting the things which can reveal tacit knowledge. By finding top-down investigation and representation tools problematic in capturing and expressing the body and space interactions, experiences, and experimentation on the ground level, I believe walking by drifting through the invisible spaces and transitions of the Khans District when viewed from above is meaningful in expressing the experimental and creative flows on the ground level. Depending on the re/presentation, it can be suggested that performing a spatial practice with the participation of the body and interpreting the architectural space from a critical position carry the contingency of uncovering tacit knowledge.

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Tactiles

Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.

Katharina Kasinger

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

View

Tactiles

Katharina Kasinger

Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.

Online Teaching Module

Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

Claudia Mainardi Gennaro Postiglione Gaia Caramellino Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies

Online Teaching Module

March 10, 2023

View

Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

Claudia Mainardi Gennaro Postiglione Gaia Caramellino Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies

Online Teaching Module

On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

Anna Livia Vørsel Helena Mattsson Helena Mattsson Jennifer Mack KTH Royal Institute of Technology, KTH School of Architecture

Online Teaching Module

February 10, 2022

View

On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

Anna Livia Vørsel Helena Mattsson Helena Mattsson Jennifer Mack KTH Royal Institute of Technology, KTH School of Architecture

Essay

Building worlds: architecture as speculation on society

As part of The Persistence of Questioning, critical reflections for the future: ‘What is architecture?’, Lara Schrijver argues that Science fiction in particular can help architecture to consider unforeseen consequences of design decisions. We thoroughly need to recognize how on the one hand the environment and society are connected, and how on the other hand the future remains difficult to predict.

Lara Schrijver

Essay

March 7, 2022

View

Building worlds: architecture as speculation on society

Lara Schrijver

As part of The Persistence of Questioning, critical reflections for the future: ‘What is architecture?’, Lara Schrijver argues that Science fiction in particular can help architecture to consider unforeseen consequences of design decisions. We thoroughly need to recognize how on the one hand the environment and society are connected, and how on the other hand the future remains difficult to predict.

Conference Paper Paper

POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.

Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger

Conference Paper Paper

November 4, 2021

View

POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.

Online Teaching Module

Case study. Warburg architectures/Resonance How does architecture become meaningful?

Tim Anstey Mara Trübenbach Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies (OCCAS)

Online Teaching Module

August 1, 2023

View

Case study. Warburg architectures/Resonance How does architecture become meaningful?

Tim Anstey Mara Trübenbach Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies (OCCAS)

Video Website

Equal by Design

Peg Rawes

Video Website

View

Equal by Design

Peg Rawes

SECTION 1: DRAMATURGIES

Lecture / Talk Video

6 December 2021

TACK Talks #3: Narratives of Tacit Knowledge

Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

Lecture / Talk Video

6 December 2021

View

TACK Talks #3: Narratives of Tacit Knowledge

Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

A slide from Dr. Klaske Havik’s lecture "Investigating Practices through Narrative"

Lecture / Talk Presentation Video

Ways of Knowing Architecture – Resisting the Master’s Tools

This keynote by Elke Krasny took place on Monday 19 June 2023 (13:15-14:15 CEST) during the TACK Final Conference at ETH Zürich.

Elke Krasny

Lecture / Talk Presentation Video

June 19, 2023

View

Ways of Knowing Architecture – Resisting the Master’s Tools

Elke Krasny

This keynote by Elke Krasny took place on Monday 19 June 2023 (13:15-14:15 CEST) during the TACK Final Conference at ETH Zürich.

Lecture / Talk

Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.

Gaia Caramellino

Lecture / Talk

April 26, 2021

View

Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

Gaia Caramellino

In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.

Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

In Quest of Meaning – Revisiting the discourse around “non-pedigreed” architecture.

ABSTRACT

In their practice, architects never refer to something as “pedigreed” to describe their work. However, during the 1960s, Bernard Rudofsky introduced the term "non-pedigreed" architecture, which he attributed to edifices not designed by formally trained architects, but for various reasons, their status exceeds that of the "mere building". As a fact, since explicit knowledge around “non-pedigreed” architecture is scarce, architects rely mostly on interpretations. This contribution revisits several of these interpretations through the perspective of its "actors," referring to the scholarly work of selected architects, and it is structured into three parts. The first section introduces the motivations behind the study of "non-pedigreed" architecture, delving into questions of aesthetics and authorship. The second part explores the fruitful contradictions arising from the first section and focuses on the relationship between vernacular architecture and the concept of Time, as well as the development of craft skills. Finally, the third part examines specific case studies where the value of vernacular architecture shifts from being merely a reference point to becoming an integral part of the architectural production process.

Vasileios Chanis

Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

June 21, 2023

View

In Quest of Meaning – Revisiting the discourse around “non-pedigreed” architecture.

Vasileios Chanis

Figure 1 and Figure 2: Jacques Tati, Mon Oncle, 1958 (Directed and produced by Jacques Tati)

ABSTRACT

In their practice, architects never refer to something as “pedigreed” to describe their work. However, during the 1960s, Bernard Rudofsky introduced the term "non-pedigreed" architecture, which he attributed to edifices not designed by formally trained architects, but for various reasons, their status exceeds that of the "mere building". As a fact, since explicit knowledge around “non-pedigreed” architecture is scarce, architects rely mostly on interpretations. This contribution revisits several of these interpretations through the perspective of its "actors," referring to the scholarly work of selected architects, and it is structured into three parts. The first section introduces the motivations behind the study of "non-pedigreed" architecture, delving into questions of aesthetics and authorship. The second part explores the fruitful contradictions arising from the first section and focuses on the relationship between vernacular architecture and the concept of Time, as well as the development of craft skills. Finally, the third part examines specific case studies where the value of vernacular architecture shifts from being merely a reference point to becoming an integral part of the architectural production process.

Invisible Elastic Structure

Invisible Elastic Structure

Bed Chamber

Bed Chamber

The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

Re-enacting Le Corbusier’s way of sketching

November 13, 2012

Re-enacting Le Corbusier’s way of sketching

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

October 10, 2022

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

TACK Talks #3: Architecture and its Tacit Dimensions

October 11, 2021

TACK Talks #3: Architecture and its Tacit Dimensions

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

March 25, 2021

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

November 1, 2022

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

Zine

May 3, 2021

Zine

On Circular Windows, and their sudden appearance on Instagram

March 1, 2020

On Circular Windows, and their sudden appearance on Instagram

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

June 1, 2022

Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

July 27, 2020

Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

November 1, 2022

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT – Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces

TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT – Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces

Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

November 1, 2022

A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

Performing Space Through Photography

Performing Space Through Photography

Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Experiences in Archival Secondments

August 12, 2022

Experiences in Archival Secondments

Exploring The Infra-thin

Exploring The Infra-thin

TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

September 1, 2021

TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

The stool called WALDE

The stool called WALDE

Material Orbit

Material Orbit

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

On Twists and Turns. Architecture: Design and Judgment

July 4, 2023

On Twists and Turns. Architecture: Design and Judgment

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

October 20, 2023

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

February 1, 2023

Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

July 23, 2020

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Towards a DIGITAL PUBLISHING PLATFORM for TACK