And Yet It Moves: Ethics, Power and Politics in the Stories of Collecting, Archiving and Displaying of Drawings and Models

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Acknowledgement

With thanks to Prof. Suzanne Ewing, Editor of Architecture and Culture for her insightful advice and support throughout the production of this special issue.

Notes

1. Regarding the concepts of construction and construing in architecture theory see Marco Frascari, “The Tell-the-Tale Detail,” VIA no. 7 (1981): 23–37.

2. Federica Goffi, ed., The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models: From Translating to Archiving, Collecting and Displaying (London: Routledge, 2022).

3. Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1997), 154–163.

4. Marco Frascari, Monsters of Architecture: Anthropomorphism in Architectural Theory (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991), 77; Thordis Arrhenius, Mari Lending, et al., Place and Displacement. Exhibiting Architecture (Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2014); Eeva Liisa Pekonen, Carson Chand and David Andrew Tasman, eds., Exhibiting Architecture: A Paradox? (New Haven and Barcelona: Actar, Yale School of Architecture, 2015); Jordan Kauffman, Drawing on Architecture: The Object of Lines, 1970–1990 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018); Eeva Liisa Pekonen, Exhibit A: Exhibitions That Transformed Architecture, 1948-2000 (London: Phaidon Press, 2018).

5. See, for example, “The Critical Visitor,” a research project into heritage institutions with attention to questions of inclusivity and accessibility in which Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam participates as a partner. https://hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/critical-visitor-important-subsidy-allocation-nwo-smart-culture (accessed May 11, 2021).

6. See the interview “Archival Futures. Born Digital Architecture Media,” with Annet Dekker in this special issue.

7. See the Code of Ethics adopted by the International Council on Archives on September 6, 1996 at the XIII general assembly in Beijing, China, https://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA_1996-09-06_code%20of%20ethics_EN.pdf (accessed May 16, 2021).

8. Stoler defines archives as “something in between a set of documents, their institutions, and a repository of memory-both a place and a cultural space that encompasses official documents but are not confined to them.” Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 44, 49.

9. Jacques Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” Diacritics 25, no. 2 (1995): 3.

10. See, for example, as a study of domiciliation, the analysis of the sited immobile drawings of Michelangelo: “The ‘house arrest’ of Michelangelo’s mural drawings,” by Jonathan Foote, in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

11. Verne Harris, “Archives, Politics and Justice,” in Political Pressure and the Archival Record, ed. Margaret Procter, Michael Cook, and Caroline Williams (Chicago: Society of Architectural Archivists, 2005), 173.

12. Frans Neggers, “Setting up Het Nieuwe Instituut’s Digital Archive,” February 17, 2020, https://collectie.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/preservation/setting-het-nieuwe-instituuts-digital-archive (accessed May 11, 2021).

13. Federica Goffi, “Translations and Dislocations of Architectural Media at the Fabric of St. Peter’s in the Vatican,” arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 22, no. 4 (2018): 325–338.

14. See the chapters: “The Move of the Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings and Models. From Private Archive to Public Collection and Its Promotion of Use and Deterrence of Abuse,” by Neil Levine; “I will Begin with the Jar of Empty Pen Caps. The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania,” by William Whitaker; “The Living Archive. The Renzo Piano Building Workshop and the Renzo Piano Foundation,” by Renzo Piano, Chiara Bennati, Nicoletta Durante and Giovanna Langasco in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models. For a short review of the history of architectural museums and their archives see John Harris, “Storehouses of Knowledge: The origins of the Contemporary Architectural Museum,” in Canadian Center for Architecture, Building and Gardens, edited by Larry Richards (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989), 15–32. Regarding digital collections see the essay by the Manager of the Heritage Department of Het Nieuwe Instituut, Behrang Mousavi, “The future of Digital sustainability,” https://collectie.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/collection-news/future-digital-sustainability (accessed March 7, 2021).

15. See the essay, “‘Ugly’ Architectural Drawings of William Hardy Wilson: (Re)Viewing Architectural Drawings with Difficult Origins or Content for Curation and Display,” by Yvette Putra and the essay, “Collecting State Contents, Territory and Value in France, c. 1700–1850,” by Jonah Rowen in this special issue.

16. Karl Schlögel, In Space We Read Time: On the History of Civilization and Geopolitics, tran. Gerrit Jackson (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2016).

17. Giulia Ricci, “Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s Archive is now in Portugal (and Not Without Criticism),” Domus, September 11, 2020, https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2020/09/11/paulo-mendes-da-rochas-archive-is-flying-to-casa-da-arquitectura-portugal-and-not-without-criticism.html (accessed February 7, 2021). See also the chapter: “The Archives of Luis Barragán. A Complicated and Controversial Story” by Louise Noelle Gras, in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

18. For a recent study of the phenomenon of archival displacement denoting a questionable even if legal removal of archives from an original place, see James Lowry, Displaced Archives (London and New York: Routldge, 2017), 1–22. Such archives are referred to as “migrated archives” or “expatriate archives.” Lowry, Displaced Archives, 4.

19. Giacomo Pirazzoli, “Mendes da Rocha, gli archivi e le ferite coloniali del Brasile, Il Giornale dell’Architettura,” September 23, 2020, https://ilgiornaledellarchitettura.com/2020/09/23/mendes-da-rocha-gli-archivi-e-le-ferite-coloniali-del-brasile/ (accessed March 7, 2021); Brigit Katz, “Brazil Dissolves Its Ministry of Culture,” Smithsonian Magazine, January 10, 2019, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brazils-new-government-has-dissolved-countrys-culture-ministry-180971236/ (accessed April 18, 2021); Gabriela Angeleti, “Jair Bolsonaro’s Government Extinguishes Brazilian Ministry of Culture,” The Art Newspaper, January 9, 2019, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/brazilian-culture-ministry-bolsonaro-osmar-terra (accessed April 18, 2021).

20. See Ela Biettencourt, “As Fires Consume Brazilian Cultural Heritage, Could Cinemateca Brasileira Be Next?” Frieze, May 10, 2021, https://www.frieze.com/article/fires-consume-brazilian-cultural-heritage-could-cinemateca-brasileira-be-next (accessed June 1, 2021). In 2018 a large fire devastated the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/world/americas/brazil-museum-fire.html (accessed June 1, 2021).

21. Regarding the concept of facticity see François Raffoul and Eric Nelson, eds., Rethinking Facticity (Albany: State University of New York, 2009).

22. See the chapter by Alba Di Lieto, “A Well Sited Archive. The Carlo Scarpa Archive at the Castelvecchio Museum,” in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

23. Alba Di Lieto, I Disegni di Carlo Scarpa per Castelvecchio (Venezia: Marsilio, 2006). See also the online digital archive of the Carlo Scarpa Archive at the Museum of Castelvecchio, http://www.archiviocarloscarpa.it/web/progetto.php?lingua=e (accessed April 18, 2021).

24. Federica Goffi, Time Matter(s): Invention and Re-Imagination in Built Conservation. The Unfinished Drawing and Building of St. Peter’s, the Vatican (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013), 8–9, 61–63.

25. Terry Cook, “Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts,” Archival Science 1, no. 1, 2000: 3–24; Randall C. Jimerson, “Archives for All: Professional Responsibilities and Social Justice,” The American Archivist no. 70, Fall/Winter 2007: 252–281. See also Ann Laura Stoler about the critique of the concept of archives as “stable ‘things’ with ready-made and neatly drawn boundaries.” Stoler, Along the Archival Grain, 51.

26. Marco Frascari, “Horizons at the Drafting Table: Filarete and Steinberg,” in Chora 5: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, ed. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 179–200.

27. Bruno Latour, “Visualization and Cognition. Drawing Things Together,” in Knowledge and Society Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present, ed. Henrika Kuklick and Elizabeth Long (Greenwich, CT: Jay Press, 1986), IV: 1–40.

28. Derrida, “Archive Fever,” 27.

29. Marco Frascari, Marco Frascari’s Dreamhouse: A Theory of Imagination, ed. Federica Goffi (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 6–8.

30. Annet Dekker, Collecting and Conserving Net Art: Moving Beyond Conventional methods (London: Routledge, 2018); See also Annet Dekker, ed., archive2020. Sustainable Archiving of Born-Digital Cultural Content (Amsterdam: Virtueel Platform, 2010).

31. Frascari, Monsters of Architecture, 77.

32. Regarding the John Soane Museum, an architecture office turned into museum, see “The place of models and drawings in Sir John Soane’s House and Museum,” by Helen Dorey, in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

33. Giuseppe Marco Antonio Baretti, The Italian Library. Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the Most Valuable Authors of Italy: With a Preface, Exhibiting the Changes of the Tuscan Language, from the Barbarous Ages to the Present Time (Londra: A. Millar in the Strand, 1757), 52.

34. Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building, 160. Mario Carpo, “Building with Geometry, Drawing with Numbers,” in When is the Digital in Architecture? ed. Andrew Goodhouse (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017), 43. The medieval practices of tracing drawings and profiles of full-scale architectural elements on the site document the immobility of the drawings, which were an integral part of the construction site and the building. Some of the well documented medieval examples include the “tracing houses” of Wells and York Minster Cathedral. Alexander Holton, “The Working Space of the Medieval Master Mason: The Tracing Houses of York Minster and Wells Cathedral,” in Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Construction History (Volume II, 2006): 1579–1597.

35. Archivio Segreto Vaticano [ASV], Misc., Arm. X 204. Sergio Pagano, I Documenti Vaticani del Processo di Galileo Galilei (1611–1741) (Vatican: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2009), 10. See also https://www.swissinfo.ch/ita/lux-in-arcana_l-archivio-segreto-vaticano-si-svela-al-pubblico/32254578 (accessed May 9, 2021).

36. The extensive Vatican Apostolic Archive is the personal archive of the Pope, and it has gradually offered access to materials to an increasing number of researchers. See https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20191022_archivio-apostolico-vaticano.html (accessed May 16, 2021).

37. Alessandra Gonzato, Lux In Arcana. The Vatican Secret Archives Reveals Itself. Exhibition Catalogue. (Rome: Palombi Editore, 2012).

38. See “Rise and Fall of a Draftsman, The Lequeu Legacy at the National Library of France” by Elisa Boeri in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

39. See for example, “After the Original (the Afterimage). High Costs, low roads and circumventions” by Marcia Feuerstein about the archival collection of the works of Oskar Schlemmer, and also “The Secret Afterlife of Three Drawings and the Replica They Spawned” by Adam Sharr in Goffi, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models.

40. The 1996 Code of Ethics of the International Council on Archives states in the second article that archivists “should cooperate to ensure the preservation of records in the most appropriate repository.” https://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA_1996-09-06_code%20of%20ethics_EN.pdf (accessed May 16, 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Federica Goffi

Federica Goffi is Professor of Architecture, Interim Director and Co-Chair of the PhD and MAS Program at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada (2007-present). She was an Assistant Professor at INTAR, RISD, US (2005–2007). She holds a PhD from Virginia Tech in Architecture and Design Research. She has published book chapters and journal articles on the threefold nature of time-weather-tempo. Her book, Time Matter[s]: Invention and Re-imagination in Built Conservation: The Unfinished Drawing and Building of St. Peter’s in the Vatican, was published by Ashgate in 2013. Her recent edited volumes include Marco Frascari’s Dream House: A Theory of Imagination (Routledge 2017), InterVIEWS: Insights and Introspection in Doctoral Research in Architecture (Routledge 2019), and the co-edited Ceilings and Dreams: The Architecture of Levity (Routledge 2019). Her edited book The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models: From Translating to Archiving, Collecting and Displaying is forthcoming. She holds a Dottore in Architettura from the University of Genoa, Italy. She is a licensed architect in her native country, Italy.