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About TACK TACK Book How to Use What is Tacit Knowledge?
The different ‘places’ where one discusses or presents work, and the particular quality of the environment where these take place. These spatial metaphors range in character from being in-progress, pedagogical or informal to communicative, informational or archival.
The variety of media and formats in which research outputs can take shape, engaging different forms of communication, reaching particular audiences and accomplishing specific purposes.
The different ways in which one person ‘knows more than she can tell’ depending on the character and origin of the knowledge. These different forms of tacit knowing describe its specificity: pointing out whether something is implicit because it is unconscious, unrecognized, unsaid, uncodified etc.
The keywords, fields and concepts that situate the particular contributions of the network within broader literature and schools of thought.
The different phases and forms of dissemination that research and academic outputs can take, indicating the kind of publication, the progress of the work or the forum where they are presented.
The idioms that reflect the multinational character and vocalize the conversations of the TACK network and its outputs.
The members, contributors, facilitators, communities and organizations that build up, around and underneath the TACK Network and participate, in one way or another, in the endeavour of addressing the question of Tacit Knowledge in architecture.

50 Objects

Lecture / Talk

29th May 2000

Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

© Domus
La pandemia di coronavirus ha messo a nudo questioni che erano già oggetto di riflessione con un’accelerazione senza precedenti. Per questo Domus propone di ragionare, ancora a caldo, su quale sia la città che vogliamo.
Claudia Mainardi
Lecture / Talk

29th May 2000

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Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

Claudia Mainardi
© Domus
La pandemia di coronavirus ha messo a nudo questioni che erano già oggetto di riflessione con un’accelerazione senza precedenti. Per questo Domus propone di ragionare, ancora a caldo, su quale sia la città che vogliamo.
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Ulrich Mahler’s Exkursionszettel Wagbachniederung

Ulrich Mahler’s Exkursionszettel exemplifies the importance of embodied tacit knowledge in the management of constructed landscapes.
Johanna Just
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

May 29, 2022

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Ulrich Mahler’s Exkursionszettel Wagbachniederung

Johanna Just
© TACK
Ulrich Mahler’s Exkursionszettel exemplifies the importance of embodied tacit knowledge in the management of constructed landscapes.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Carpenter Chair

© Sarah Vecchio
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Carpenter Chair

Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
© Sarah Vecchio
© TACK
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
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
ABSTRACT
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

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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
ABSTRACT
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. 
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Maputo Land Rover

Between 1998 and 2005, we engaged in the design and construction of the Dutch Embassy in Mozambique. Offering an opportunity to tap into local tacit knowledge, this project revealed the importance of culturally specific knowledge and skills in design and building projects.
Kees Kaan
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Maputo Land Rover

Kees Kaan
© TACK
Between 1998 and 2005, we engaged in the design and construction of the Dutch Embassy in Mozambique. Offering an opportunity to tap into local tacit knowledge, this project revealed the importance of culturally specific knowledge and skills in design and building projects.
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0
ABSTRACT
While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.
Valerie Hoberg
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

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UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Valerie Hoberg
Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0
Fig. 2_Smiljan Radić_Folly London 2014 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Image Credit: © Images George Rex, „Serpentine Pavilion 2014 / I”, colours changed by the author, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode, (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/14325677738/in/photolist-nPUQTL-8Nt32E-nQ4Nkn-oo16Pr-AaRKVU-o7ggJK-nQ5pnL-o7ros7-o7gfGV-o7g83X-nQ532m-o7yvVR-o7rnAN-nQ5k5C-nQsYXj-o7sNWJ-nQ5k6F-o9kEgv-d9KJ3k-2dvDbQm-nQ5bE1-nQ54j1-o7sLuE-d9KHyK-d9KHvA-nQ4RmU-d9KG5B-d9KGJC-8B6Ftp-d9KF3P-d9KER7-qnV5d7-2cuaupw-2cuauhh-2cuauwL-2aPygS9-2ccrV1M-2dvDfHm-2dvDfqN-zUshZy-2aPyh53-2dvDeKu-2aPygoy-2ccrUDV-2cuatXQ-2aPyg8o-2cuau6W-2ccrUuX-2ccrUR8-2aPyfRb)
Fig. 3_ Smiljan Radić_NAVE Santiago de Chile 2014 Title: Smiljan Radić, NAVE, Santiago de Chile 2014 Image Credit: architecture: Smiljan Radić, photo: Valerie Hoberg
ABSTRACT
While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.
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

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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.
Note Review Site writing

Book Corner: ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism by Jane Rendell (2010)

Rendell, J. (2010) ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism
The introduction to the author’s positional body of work, sets the theoretical and intellectual context for the ideas underpinning Site-Writing as a practice and their aims in giving voice to this form of practice. The author uses seminal writers on phycology, art-practice and philosophy as figures to guide their later theories and discusses the relationship between architecture and art-critique as reflective and positional practices.
Jhono Bennett Anna Livia Vørsel
Note Review Site writing

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Book Corner: ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism by Jane Rendell (2010)

Jhono Bennett Anna Livia Vørsel
Rendell, J. (2010) ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism
The introduction to the author’s positional body of work, sets the theoretical and intellectual context for the ideas underpinning Site-Writing as a practice and their aims in giving voice to this form of practice. The author uses seminal writers on phycology, art-practice and philosophy as figures to guide their later theories and discusses the relationship between architecture and art-critique as reflective and positional practices.
Newsletter

Map of Mobility – A visualisation of research movement

Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map” and shares with us his thoughts on the map showing the research movement of the TACK doctoral students.
Gennaro Postiglione
Newsletter

May 22, 2022

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Map of Mobility – A visualisation of research movement

Gennaro Postiglione
Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map” and shares with us his thoughts on the map showing the research movement of the TACK doctoral students.
Interview Video

THE POWER OF SILENT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN KNOWLEDGE

Tom Avermaete and Hamish Lonergan were interviewed by Gabrielle Attinger from the EU Grants Access in Zürich about their perspective on the TACK project.
Tom Avermaete Hamish Lonergan
Interview Video

March 1, 2022

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THE POWER OF SILENT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN KNOWLEDGE

Tom Avermaete Hamish Lonergan
Tom Avermaete and Hamish Lonergan were interviewed by Gabrielle Attinger from the EU Grants Access in Zürich about their perspective on the TACK project.
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

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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.
Essay

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.
Eva Sommeregger
Essay

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Designing space through motion pictures

Eva Sommeregger
© 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.
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
ABSTRACT
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.
Eric Crevels
Open Access Publication Paper

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Knowledge in Architecture: draughtsmanship or craftsmanship?

Eric Crevels
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
ABSTRACT
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.
Online Teaching Module

On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

© Anna Livia Vørsel
Anna Livia Vørsel Helena Mattsson Helena Mattsson Jennifer Mack KTH Royal Institute of Technology, KTH School of Architecture
Online Teaching Module

February 10, 2022

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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
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

History meets the Body. Re-enactment as a mode of architectural inquiry.

ABSTRACT
Although we normally think about ideas and discourses as disembodied entities, the truth is that tacit architectural concepts, specific ways of understanding history, time, and space, are inscribed into our built environments, and they can only be disentangled with the help of our own bodies, by performing actions within, in, and around buildings. This paper explores the use of re-enactments as a method for architectural historians, using Aldo and Hannie van Eyck’s own house as a case study. The researcher’s body informs the reflections and findings, from materiality to meaning, through the continuous and embedded experience of the space, a seventeenth century building were the Van Eycks lived from 1965, which was diligently remodelled by themselves into their treasured family home. Almost hidden from the street hustle, yet open to the outside, the place lights up as soon as the threshold is crossed. Both literally and metaphorically, the changes and additions to the building reveal their architectural thinking and ways of inhabiting. In the house, layers of temporality, materiality, everyday living and lived experience mingle with design solutions and worldviews affecting them. However, while re-enactments allow for an embodied understanding of how architectural ideas take material form, they also hold the potential to show the situatedness, partiality and contingency of the re-enacted practices, questioning the same values that they unearth. keywords.
Alejandro Campos-Uribe Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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History meets the Body. Re-enactment as a mode of architectural inquiry.

Alejandro Campos-Uribe Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
© TACK
ABSTRACT
Although we normally think about ideas and discourses as disembodied entities, the truth is that tacit architectural concepts, specific ways of understanding history, time, and space, are inscribed into our built environments, and they can only be disentangled with the help of our own bodies, by performing actions within, in, and around buildings. This paper explores the use of re-enactments as a method for architectural historians, using Aldo and Hannie van Eyck’s own house as a case study. The researcher’s body informs the reflections and findings, from materiality to meaning, through the continuous and embedded experience of the space, a seventeenth century building were the Van Eycks lived from 1965, which was diligently remodelled by themselves into their treasured family home. Almost hidden from the street hustle, yet open to the outside, the place lights up as soon as the threshold is crossed. Both literally and metaphorically, the changes and additions to the building reveal their architectural thinking and ways of inhabiting. In the house, layers of temporality, materiality, everyday living and lived experience mingle with design solutions and worldviews affecting them. However, while re-enactments allow for an embodied understanding of how architectural ideas take material form, they also hold the potential to show the situatedness, partiality and contingency of the re-enacted practices, questioning the same values that they unearth. keywords.
Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #3: “In-tray – tracing lost voices in architectural archives” x “Election! Architecture and the Tacit Politics of Design”

© TACK
Jennifer Mack Tim Anstey Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Lecture / Talk Video

June 27, 2022

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TACK Talks #3: “In-tray – tracing lost voices in architectural archives” x “Election! Architecture and the Tacit Politics of Design”

Jennifer Mack Tim Anstey Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

Labor, Prescription and Alienation in Architecture: Critical Notes On The Architect’s Practice

Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.
Eric Crevels
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

October 16, 2022

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Labor, Prescription and Alienation in Architecture: Critical Notes On The Architect’s Practice

Eric Crevels
Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain
Image 02: Building of Babel Date: 1882 Artist: Edmund Ollier Source: https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.77290/mode/2up , © Public Domain
Image 03: Weltchronik in Versen, Szene: Der Turmbau zu Babel Date: circa 1370 Artist: Meister der Weltenchronik Source: The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.
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

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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.
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

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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.
Video

Toolkit for Today

As part of the 2017 Toolkit seminar, Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead raise questions and discuss cases from their own work gathering oral histories, including for a project on female architects in Australia. They are joined by, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, who discusses interviews he conducted with those affected by the development of Montreal’s Place des Festivals.
Janina Gosseye Naomi Stead
Video

August 17, 2017

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Toolkit for Today

Janina Gosseye Naomi Stead
As part of the 2017 Toolkit seminar, Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead raise questions and discuss cases from their own work gathering oral histories, including for a project on female architects in Australia. They are joined by, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, who discusses interviews he conducted with those affected by the development of Montreal’s Place des Festivals.
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

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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.
Essay

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)
Lara Schrijver
Essay

March 1, 2020

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

Lara Schrijver
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)
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Forêt DesCartes

Christian Kieckens, Forêt DesCartes, postcards stand prototype, 1995
This curious object evokes Kieckens’ habits and practices: the collection of images and their arrangement in space, travel as a form of disciplinary exchange with a community of practice, and the teaching of architecture by means of references. Forêt DesCartes is an experimental spatial device for handling, transmitting, and producing tacit visual knowledge.
Filippo Cattapan
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Forêt DesCartes

Filippo Cattapan
Christian Kieckens, Forêt DesCartes, postcards stand prototype, 1995
© TACK
This curious object evokes Kieckens’ habits and practices: the collection of images and their arrangement in space, travel as a form of disciplinary exchange with a community of practice, and the teaching of architecture by means of references. Forêt DesCartes is an experimental spatial device for handling, transmitting, and producing tacit visual knowledge.
Diagram Fanzine Interview

Interview with Kristina Schinegger and Stefan Rutzinger

On 7 April 2021, Kristina Schinegger (KS) and Stefan Rutzinger (SR) were interviewed on Zoom by Paula Strunden, PhD Candidate, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Paula Strunden SOMA Architecture
Diagram Fanzine Interview

April 7, 2021

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Interview with Kristina Schinegger and Stefan Rutzinger

Paula Strunden SOMA Architecture
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
On 7 April 2021, Kristina Schinegger (KS) and Stefan Rutzinger (SR) were interviewed on Zoom by Paula Strunden, PhD Candidate, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
TACK Book

Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
TACK Book

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Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Essay Paper

The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
Hamish Lonergan
Essay Paper

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The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

Hamish Lonergan
@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
© Patrick Mackie
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
Conference Paper Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Constructing Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Political Commitment and Urban Planning in Postwar Milan

Fig. 1 Cologno Monzese on a Saturday afternoon in the 1960s. From Casabella Continuità, n. 282, December 1963, p. 4
ABSTRACT
Exploring historical models of the construction of communities of tacit knowledge, this paper examines the contribution of leftist practitioners to Milanese postwar planning culture focusing on the communist architectural collective Collettivo di Architettura. During the reconstruction period, Milan underwent significant economic, social, and territorial transformations that intensified the divide between the city center and the periphery. The Milanese outskirts were left to speculation, rapid urbanization, and high migration rates without adequate planning tools and policies. In this context, leftist practitioners sought to address the problems affecting the Milanese periphery and wanted to contribute to their resolution. Among them, Collettivo di Architettura stood out for its explicit political stance and extensive contribution. Its members attributed social and political dimensions to architectural work and integrated collaborative ways of working and political militancy into their practice. During the 1950s, they provided free professional support in the Milanese periphery in addition to their architectural practice: as urbanista condotto, they assisted municipalities that lacked adequate planning tools and knowledge and initiated discussions with local authorities, institutions, and economic operators concerning urban development. As a result, procedures, strategies, and processes were collectively developed to establish effective planning methods and improve living conditions in the Milanese outskirts. By explicitly drawing from the Gramscian concept of the organic intellectual and the example of other committed practitioners of their time, the engagement of Collettivo’s members provided the basis for a shared planning culture. Thus, this case study highlights the significance of political commitment in generating collaborative communities of tacit knowledge.
Elettra Carnelli
Conference Paper Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

July 19, 2023

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Constructing Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Political Commitment and Urban Planning in Postwar Milan

Elettra Carnelli
Fig. 1 Cologno Monzese on a Saturday afternoon in the 1960s. From Casabella Continuità, n. 282, December 1963, p. 4
Fig. 2 First scheme of the Intercommunal Plan of Milan’s territory, known as “modello a turbina”. Centro Studi PIM, 25 July 1963. From Urbanistica, n. 50-51, October 1967, p. 34
© TACK
ABSTRACT
Exploring historical models of the construction of communities of tacit knowledge, this paper examines the contribution of leftist practitioners to Milanese postwar planning culture focusing on the communist architectural collective Collettivo di Architettura. During the reconstruction period, Milan underwent significant economic, social, and territorial transformations that intensified the divide between the city center and the periphery. The Milanese outskirts were left to speculation, rapid urbanization, and high migration rates without adequate planning tools and policies. In this context, leftist practitioners sought to address the problems affecting the Milanese periphery and wanted to contribute to their resolution. Among them, Collettivo di Architettura stood out for its explicit political stance and extensive contribution. Its members attributed social and political dimensions to architectural work and integrated collaborative ways of working and political militancy into their practice. During the 1950s, they provided free professional support in the Milanese periphery in addition to their architectural practice: as urbanista condotto, they assisted municipalities that lacked adequate planning tools and knowledge and initiated discussions with local authorities, institutions, and economic operators concerning urban development. As a result, procedures, strategies, and processes were collectively developed to establish effective planning methods and improve living conditions in the Milanese outskirts. By explicitly drawing from the Gramscian concept of the organic intellectual and the example of other committed practitioners of their time, the engagement of Collettivo’s members provided the basis for a shared planning culture. Thus, this case study highlights the significance of political commitment in generating collaborative communities of tacit knowledge.
Essay Paper

COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
Margitta Buchert
Essay Paper

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COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

Margitta Buchert
Fig. 6:
ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
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

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Tactiles

Katharina Kasinger
© TACK
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.
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

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Infra-thin Magick

Paula Strunden
© TACK
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.
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

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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