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50 Objects

Online Teaching Module

Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

© Claudia Mainardi

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

Online Teaching Module

March 10, 2023

Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

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

© Claudia Mainardi

© Claudia Mainardi

© Claudia Mainardi

© Claudia Mainardi

© Claudia Mainardi

© Claudia Mainardi

Open Access Publication Paper

Knowledge in Architecture: draughtsmanship or craftsmanship?

Image 01: Mason worker drawing Date: 1425 Source: Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1. Nürnberg 1426–1549. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°, © Public Domain

What are draughtsmanship and craftsmanship in architecture and what is their relation? This question represents, of course, what could be called two distinct fields of knowledge and communities of practice, architecture and craft, and can very generally describe how their specific knowledge take shape or, in other words, through what kind of practice it is manifested.

Open Access Publication Paper

Knowledge in Architecture: draughtsmanship or craftsmanship?

Image 01: Mason worker drawing Date: 1425 Source: Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1. Nürnberg 1426–1549. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°, © Public Domain

Image 02: Sketch of a detail by John Ruskin Source: http://www.themorgan.org/collection/literary-and-historical-manuscripts/191761, © Public Domain

What are draughtsmanship and craftsmanship in architecture and what is their relation? This question represents, of course, what could be called two distinct fields of knowledge and communities of practice, architecture and craft, and can very generally describe how their specific knowledge take shape or, in other words, through what kind of practice it is manifested.

Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

Pools, Carparks and Ball-Pits: Or why the Notre Dame restoration competition is a meme

By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147, © By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147

The first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions.

Hamish Lonergan

Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

Pools, Carparks and Ball-Pits: Or why the Notre Dame restoration competition is a meme

Hamish Lonergan

By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147, © By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147

The first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions.

Lecture / Talk Video

Beyond Virtual-Reality

This lecture explores VR’s potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres.

Lecture / Talk Video

October 12, 2020

Beyond Virtual-Reality

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

This lecture explores VR’s potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres.

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

For architects, hand drawing is not only an important tool to grasp the history, experience, and knowledge of a place but also a space of tacit negotiation with peers and others. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake struck Japan, Atelier Bow-Wow began to produce collective hand drawings on large paper sheets, on which several work simultaneously, to jointly find a better future. This approach was further developed with students in different public spaces.

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

For architects, hand drawing is not only an important tool to grasp the history, experience, and knowledge of a place but also a space of tacit negotiation with peers and others. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake struck Japan, Atelier Bow-Wow began to produce collective hand drawings on large paper sheets, on which several work simultaneously, to jointly find a better future. This approach was further developed with students in different public spaces.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.

Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

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

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.

Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

July 27, 2020

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

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.

Lecture / Talk Video

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

Lecture / Talk Video

July 23, 2020

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

© Haworth Tompkins

© Haworth Tompkins

© Haworth Tompkins

Online Teaching Module

Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

© Ionas Sklavounos

Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture

Online Teaching Module

March 23, 2023

Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter

Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.

Angelika Schnell

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

Angelika Schnell

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter

Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.

What is Tacit Knowledge?

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan

Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.

Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach

March 1, 2023

What is Tacit Knowledge?

Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan

Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.

Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Understanding the roles of tacit knowledge in the historical collaboration between AEC: a case study approach

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.

Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos

Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

June 20, 2023

Understanding the roles of tacit knowledge in the historical collaboration between AEC: a case study approach

Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Detail of testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.

Equal by Design

Equal by Design

morethanone(fragile)

© Helen Thomas

morethanone(fragile)

© Helen Thomas

© Helen Thomas

© Helen Thomas

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

Prof. Dr. Jane Rendell, UCL gave a keynote talk 'From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing: Approaches to Architectural Research and Pedagogy' at the 5th Intermediate Meeting of the TACK network.

University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture Jane Rendell

June 14, 2022

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

Prof. Dr. Jane Rendell, UCL gave a keynote talk 'From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing: Approaches to Architectural Research and Pedagogy' at the 5th Intermediate Meeting of the TACK network.

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.

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.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects

I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.

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.

March 7, 2022

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.

Book Book chapter

The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.

Michael Polanyi

Book Book chapter

The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

Michael Polanyi

The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #1: Spridd

Spridd Christoph Grafe Anna Livia Vørsel

Lecture / Talk Video

May 28, 2020

TACK Talks #1: Spridd

Spridd Christoph Grafe Anna Livia Vørsel

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

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”.

Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan

Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.

Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan

Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Jhono Bennett, Photo: Jhono Bennett, 2023

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Mara Trübenbach , Photo: Mara Trübenbach, 2023, © Mara Trübenbach

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Ionas Sklavounos, Photo: Ionas Sklavounos, 2023, © Ionas Sklavounos

Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #1: One Fine Day architects

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects Tom Avermaete Filippo Cattapan

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #1: One Fine Day architects

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects Tom Avermaete Filippo Cattapan

Archives. On The Genesis of Architectural Design

This essay highlights the ‘archive’ as a productive and inspiring factor in architectural design. As one can observe in publications, interviews, and lectures of some contemporary architects as Sauerbruch Hutton, Brandlhuber I Kniess, Valerio Olgiati, John Pawson or EM2N for example, different kinds of archival operations might form triggers for the generic processes of basic conceptions as well as for project-oriented design actions and last but not least for the attitude and stabilization of the architects’ work and profile. With the lens of interpretations of the archive initiated by Michel Foucault and other French theorists of science and historians since the 1960s up to contemporary discourses, it is possible to show via analogies of acting and reflecting the powerful qualities of the ‘archive’ and of archival operations in the dynamic processes of architectural design.

Margitta Buchert

Archives. On The Genesis of Architectural Design

Margitta Buchert

Fig. 4: John Pawson, Cover Visual Inventory, New York: Phaidon Press 2012, Photo: a_ku

Fig. 5: John Pawson, Inside Visual Inventory: 20-21, New York: Phaidon Press 2012, Photo: a_ku

Fig. 7: EM2N, Cover Sowohl als auch: 32-33, Zürich: gta Verlag 2009, Photo: a_ku

This essay highlights the ‘archive’ as a productive and inspiring factor in architectural design. As one can observe in publications, interviews, and lectures of some contemporary architects as Sauerbruch Hutton, Brandlhuber I Kniess, Valerio Olgiati, John Pawson or EM2N for example, different kinds of archival operations might form triggers for the generic processes of basic conceptions as well as for project-oriented design actions and last but not least for the attitude and stabilization of the architects’ work and profile. With the lens of interpretations of the archive initiated by Michel Foucault and other French theorists of science and historians since the 1960s up to contemporary discourses, it is possible to show via analogies of acting and reflecting the powerful qualities of the ‘archive’ and of archival operations in the dynamic processes of architectural design.

Open Access Publication Paper

Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach

Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?

Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak

Open Access Publication Paper

January 23, 2023

Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak

Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach

Fig. 2: Installation., © Mara Trübenbach

Fig. 8: Top view of the installation., © Mara Trübenbach

Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?

Growing up as a Disney Girl: The Changing Spaces of the Feminine in Disney Films

Screenshot of Snow White from the 1958 Reissue trailer for the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs., © public domain

Invited to reflect on the contemporary cultural resonance of Disney in this essay, architecture historian Lara Schrijver explores how the emancipation of Disney’s female protagonists plays out in architectural scenographies. ‘I know my place! It is time you learned yours.’ Fa Zhou (father of Mulan)

March 1, 2020

Growing up as a Disney Girl: The Changing Spaces of the Feminine in Disney Films

Screenshot of Snow White from the 1958 Reissue trailer for the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs., © public domain

Invited to reflect on the contemporary cultural resonance of Disney in this essay, architecture historian Lara Schrijver explores how the emancipation of Disney’s female protagonists plays out in architectural scenographies. ‘I know my place! It is time you learned yours.’ Fa Zhou (father of Mulan)

Book chapter TACK Book

Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

Building on scenography, performance theory and findings from neurosciences, tacit knowing in architecture is understood here as embodied, embedded and enacted perceptual dimension of our built environment. Through art- and design-based research, tacitly knowing is examined as a form of practice and a new extended reality (XR) design tool is probed to exercise it. Since the atmospheric turn in architecture (Böhme 2017, McCormack 2014, Bille et al. 2015), it is well known that spatial perception is multi-sensory and that the interplay of our senses goes beyond the cross-fertilization of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Nevertheless, architectural designers may have only touched the surface of what we might be able to feel regarding our spatial environments. Apart from the sensation of our movement and whether our environment is too hot or cold, our abilities to feel space physically remain challenging to represent and communicate through conventional architectural tools. This includes i.e. our sense of balance, our ability to feel time passing, our knowledge of which of our body parts are where without having to look at them, and our sense of gravity, orientation, and illumination. Some of these “always-there-but-never-felt” sensations can be revealed and physically experienced when entering a fully immersive virtual environment for the first time. As our brain takes a split second to adjust to the novel surroundings, it is at this moment that we can suddenly sense our senses at work. The XR case study “Infra-thin Magick”, exhibited as part of Speculative Fiction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022, explains how such unanticipated insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting our multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. Leaning on the design theoretician Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallan’s understanding of the “autonomous model”, this performative real-time and -scale XR model that oscillates between physical installation and virtual reality (VR) experience is employed as an operative tool for designing and analyzing spatial experiences beyond the known sensations of our built environment. First user-testing results are presented, and the premise of the autonomous model to co-create reality and allow architects to research through active participation, first-hand experience, discovery, and play are brought to light.

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

Building on scenography, performance theory and findings from neurosciences, tacit knowing in architecture is understood here as embodied, embedded and enacted perceptual dimension of our built environment. Through art- and design-based research, tacitly knowing is examined as a form of practice and a new extended reality (XR) design tool is probed to exercise it. Since the atmospheric turn in architecture (Böhme 2017, McCormack 2014, Bille et al. 2015), it is well known that spatial perception is multi-sensory and that the interplay of our senses goes beyond the cross-fertilization of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Nevertheless, architectural designers may have only touched the surface of what we might be able to feel regarding our spatial environments. Apart from the sensation of our movement and whether our environment is too hot or cold, our abilities to feel space physically remain challenging to represent and communicate through conventional architectural tools. This includes i.e. our sense of balance, our ability to feel time passing, our knowledge of which of our body parts are where without having to look at them, and our sense of gravity, orientation, and illumination. Some of these “always-there-but-never-felt” sensations can be revealed and physically experienced when entering a fully immersive virtual environment for the first time. As our brain takes a split second to adjust to the novel surroundings, it is at this moment that we can suddenly sense our senses at work. The XR case study “Infra-thin Magick”, exhibited as part of Speculative Fiction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022, explains how such unanticipated insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting our multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. Leaning on the design theoretician Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallan’s understanding of the “autonomous model”, this performative real-time and -scale XR model that oscillates between physical installation and virtual reality (VR) experience is employed as an operative tool for designing and analyzing spatial experiences beyond the known sensations of our built environment. First user-testing results are presented, and the premise of the autonomous model to co-create reality and allow architects to research through active participation, first-hand experience, discovery, and play are brought to light.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #1: Korteknie Stuhlmacher

Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten Tom Avermaete Eric Crevels

Lecture / Talk Video

July 9, 2020

TACK Talks #1: Korteknie Stuhlmacher

Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten Tom Avermaete Eric Crevels

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Concept model, ‘Innerer Garten’, Zürich Leutschenbach

Model making can be a heuristic practice for architects. For us, this model was both a concept finding and communication instrument that we used in the Innerer Garten project in Zürich Leutschenbach.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Concept model, ‘Innerer Garten’, Zürich Leutschenbach

Model making can be a heuristic practice for architects. For us, this model was both a concept finding and communication instrument that we used in the Innerer Garten project in Zürich Leutschenbach.

Journal Article

Architectural Ethnography? Incipits, distances, horizons for research and teaching practices

Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione

Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research.

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata

Journal Article

June 18, 2022

Architectural Ethnography? Incipits, distances, horizons for research and teaching practices

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata

Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione

Figura 3 – La mostra finale di Gratosoglio Ground Zero (2019) , © Gennaro Postiglione

Figura 4 – La vita attorno agli oggetti (QLHL 2020), © Gennaro Postiglione

Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research.

Book chapter TACK Book

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

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

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

Filippo Cattapan

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.

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

The Yield of the Land

This vector drawing is the outcome of an elective course led by Wan and Joris at Ghent University that explored a fragment of the fast-changing landscape of Nanhai District in the Pearl River Delta, Wan’s ancestral home.

Joris Kerremans Hong Wan Chan

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

The Yield of the Land

Joris Kerremans Hong Wan Chan

This vector drawing is the outcome of an elective course led by Wan and Joris at Ghent University that explored a fragment of the fast-changing landscape of Nanhai District in the Pearl River Delta, Wan’s ancestral home.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels

Lecture / Talk Video

March 11, 2021

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels

Training in the TACK Network

Lara Schrijver describes the three different training axis of the TACK Network

Training in the TACK Network

Lara Schrijver describes the three different training axis of the TACK Network

Fotocronache Romane. The Representations of the City from Urban to Disciplinary Metaphors

Filippo Cattapan

Fotocronache Romane. The Representations of the City from Urban to Disciplinary Metaphors

Filippo Cattapan

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #3: Architecture and its Tacit Dimensions

Held at the Institut für Kunst und Architektur, Akademie der Bildenden Kunst Wien, this is the initiating event in the 3rd round of TACK talks: Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing

Lara Schrijver Tom Avermaete Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

Lecture / Talk Video

October 11, 2021

TACK Talks #3: Architecture and its Tacit Dimensions

Lara Schrijver Tom Avermaete Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

Held at the Institut für Kunst und Architektur, Akademie der Bildenden Kunst Wien, this is the initiating event in the 3rd round of TACK talks: Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing

Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

Crackpot’ and ‘Dangerous’: On the authenticity of Miesian reproductions

© Ron Frazier from Bloomington IL, United States

In 2016, the architectural press reported the planned reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe’s Wolf House, built in 1927 in Gubin, Poland, and destroyed during World War Two. Supporters claimed that, by consulting the architect’s presentation drawings, they could rebuild the house authentically. They cited a simplistic reading of philosopher Nelson Goodman’s distinction between autographic art—where an original is certified by the hand of the author—and the allographic, which is replicated through notation. Barry Bergdoll called the proposal ‘crackpot’, arguing that without the lost construction documentation it would become a ‘simulacrum’: an allusion to Jean Baudrillard’s notion of a copy without reference. Mies himself thought there was something ‘dangerous’ in building ‘a model of a real house’ after constructing his own full-scale façade mock-up for the unbuilt Kröller-Müller House (1913). Since then, an unprecedented number of reproductions have entered into their own ‘dangerous’ conversation with Mies’ work, trading to varying degrees on their authenticity. Some, like the Barcelona Pavilion reconstruction (1986) engage with heritage and archival practices in an attempt to accurately reconstruct a lost work. Others, often appearing in exhibitions such as OMA’s La Casa Palestra at the 1985 Milan Triennale, exploit the fame of Mies’ architecture to offer a rhetorical interpretation that reinforces their own authorial signature. Meanwhile self-professed 1:1 models, like Robbrecht en Daem’s Mies 1:1 Golf Club Project (2013), seem deliberately tied to Mies’ authority, stripping away materials to focus on a singular reading of the work in a model-making tradition stretching back to Alberti. By returning to Goodman’s autographic/allographic dichotomy and Baudrillard’s simulacrum, this paper seeks to make sense of these multiplying reproductions across art, architecture and conservation, and their conflicting claims to authenticity. Ultimately, this frames Miesian reproductions as one contested site in broader discussions of architecture’s relationship to authorship and authentic heritage.

Hamish Lonergan

Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

Crackpot’ and ‘Dangerous’: On the authenticity of Miesian reproductions

Hamish Lonergan

© Ron Frazier from Bloomington IL, United States

© Victor Grigas

In 2016, the architectural press reported the planned reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe’s Wolf House, built in 1927 in Gubin, Poland, and destroyed during World War Two. Supporters claimed that, by consulting the architect’s presentation drawings, they could rebuild the house authentically. They cited a simplistic reading of philosopher Nelson Goodman’s distinction between autographic art—where an original is certified by the hand of the author—and the allographic, which is replicated through notation. Barry Bergdoll called the proposal ‘crackpot’, arguing that without the lost construction documentation it would become a ‘simulacrum’: an allusion to Jean Baudrillard’s notion of a copy without reference. Mies himself thought there was something ‘dangerous’ in building ‘a model of a real house’ after constructing his own full-scale façade mock-up for the unbuilt Kröller-Müller House (1913). Since then, an unprecedented number of reproductions have entered into their own ‘dangerous’ conversation with Mies’ work, trading to varying degrees on their authenticity. Some, like the Barcelona Pavilion reconstruction (1986) engage with heritage and archival practices in an attempt to accurately reconstruct a lost work. Others, often appearing in exhibitions such as OMA’s La Casa Palestra at the 1985 Milan Triennale, exploit the fame of Mies’ architecture to offer a rhetorical interpretation that reinforces their own authorial signature. Meanwhile self-professed 1:1 models, like Robbrecht en Daem’s Mies 1:1 Golf Club Project (2013), seem deliberately tied to Mies’ authority, stripping away materials to focus on a singular reading of the work in a model-making tradition stretching back to Alberti. By returning to Goodman’s autographic/allographic dichotomy and Baudrillard’s simulacrum, this paper seeks to make sense of these multiplying reproductions across art, architecture and conservation, and their conflicting claims to authenticity. Ultimately, this frames Miesian reproductions as one contested site in broader discussions of architecture’s relationship to authorship and authentic heritage.

2021

Hello Iwona

This text was entered into the 2020 Drawing Matter Writing Prize

Hamish Lonergan

2021

Hello Iwona

Hamish Lonergan

This text was entered into the 2020 Drawing Matter Writing Prize

Book Open Access Publication

2021

The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

© Leuven University Press

Lara Schrijver Margitta Buchert Angelika Schnell Tom Avermaete Christoph Grafe

Book Open Access Publication

2021

The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

Lara Schrijver Margitta Buchert Angelika Schnell Tom Avermaete Christoph Grafe

© Leuven University Press

Online Teaching Module

Epistemic horizons of tacit knowledge: matters of skill and craftsmanship

© Eric Crevels

Eric Crevels Klaske Havik Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment

Online Teaching Module

February 15, 2023

Epistemic horizons of tacit knowledge: matters of skill and craftsmanship

Eric Crevels Klaske Havik Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

© Eric Crevels

Case Study Note Presentation Site writing

Two objects and a visit

Photo of the book cover 'Lo studio di Wimbleton', © Filippo Cattapan

The object of this visit is a short novel, which has been later “translated” into a movie. The book is Lo stadio di Wimbledon by Daniele Del Giudice, while the movie is entitled Le stade de Wimbledon and it has been directed by Mathieu Amalric. Perhaps we could say that the visit has two objects, a book and a movie, or even, more precisely, that the real object of the inquiry at a certain point turned to be the intermediate operation of translation from the book to the movie. It is in fact in this gap or relation between the two, that it seemed possible to retrace a meaningful series of tacit reasons and of cultural connections, which were hiding behind the static singularity of the two considered in their autonomy.

Filippo Cattapan

Case Study Note Presentation Site writing

June 17, 2020

Two objects and a visit

Filippo Cattapan

Photo of the book cover 'Lo studio di Wimbleton', © Filippo Cattapan

The object of this visit is a short novel, which has been later “translated” into a movie. The book is Lo stadio di Wimbledon by Daniele Del Giudice, while the movie is entitled Le stade de Wimbledon and it has been directed by Mathieu Amalric. Perhaps we could say that the visit has two objects, a book and a movie, or even, more precisely, that the real object of the inquiry at a certain point turned to be the intermediate operation of translation from the book to the movie. It is in fact in this gap or relation between the two, that it seemed possible to retrace a meaningful series of tacit reasons and of cultural connections, which were hiding behind the static singularity of the two considered in their autonomy.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to choose the expert?

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Maureen Mooren Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Anna Livia Vørsel Hamish Lonergan Claudia Mainardi

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to choose the expert?

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Maureen Mooren Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Anna Livia Vørsel Hamish Lonergan Claudia Mainardi

Lecture / Talk Video

Tacit knowledge and the locus of legitimate interpretation

Lecture / Talk Video

June 20, 2023

Tacit knowledge and the locus of legitimate interpretation

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.

Paper Site writing

REFLECTIVE ANIMATION. Navigating the What-What

© Jhono Bennett

Critically engaging with one’s positionality in contemporary architectural research in a post-Apartheid South African context requires an approach that blends concerns about identity, location, and voice in responsibly creative means, while not reinforcing the existing power dynamics inherent in such work. This essay employs Jane Rendell’s Site-Writing modality to develop a means of navigating these inter-demographic and inter-locational dilemmas - the What-What - that emerge when working from a »northerly« located institution and speaking from a »Southern« position through multiple audiences. A reflective-animation method has been developed that provides a proto-methodology for both documenting and speculating with the tacit nature of spatial design practice in post-Apartheid South African cities.

Paper Site writing

November 1, 2022

REFLECTIVE ANIMATION. Navigating the What-What

© Jhono Bennett

Figure 10: A Screen Grab from the Digital Exhibition of the Site-Writing Project Entitled: Spirit of the Order (Bennett 2021) that Blends Animation with Writing and Drawing., © Jhono Bennett

© Jhono Bennett

Critically engaging with one’s positionality in contemporary architectural research in a post-Apartheid South African context requires an approach that blends concerns about identity, location, and voice in responsibly creative means, while not reinforcing the existing power dynamics inherent in such work. This essay employs Jane Rendell’s Site-Writing modality to develop a means of navigating these inter-demographic and inter-locational dilemmas - the What-What - that emerge when working from a »northerly« located institution and speaking from a »Southern« position through multiple audiences. A reflective-animation method has been developed that provides a proto-methodology for both documenting and speculating with the tacit nature of spatial design practice in post-Apartheid South African cities.

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