Project

Discipline

Architectural motifs; Aesthetics of reception; Transparency; Aesthetic perception; Architecture; Display; Landscape; Visual Culture; Performativity; Iconology; Frame; Representation; Window; Indexicality

Lead
Lay summary
The research project “Architectures of Display” is concerned with architecture as an apparatus for framing and display. It starts out from the assumption that architectural thinking has been concerned with display throughout history. Conversely, architecture’s “display capacity” has not been given adequate consideration. Its systematic analysis is important for current research mainly for three reasons: First, it will shed light on the complex relationship between the architectural artifact and its observer/user, thus working toward a theory of how architecture produces visual and spatial meaning. Second, it will lay the basis for a better understanding of the relationship between architecture and its topographical setting. Third, the investigation contributes to an opening of the methodologies of architectural history, thereby working toward a re-integration of architectural history within the humanities. The guiding questions of the investigation are: What is architectural about display? What is the architectural language of display? Rather than following a traditional methodological trajectory, the project is situated at the interface of architectural iconology and the aesthetics and history of reception. The aim of the research project is, on the one hand, to establish a map of architectural elements and motifs of display (such as the window, the threshold, or the loggia). On the other hand, the inquiry seeks to explore historical responses towards architectures of display by looking into how users/spectators of architectural structures responded to instances of architectural framing/display. The project will consider architectural display from a broad historical perspective from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance to the present. Such a wide historical span will underline the significance of the “display capacity” as a basic function of architecture, but will also allow to arrive at a thorough theoretical understanding of how this capacity has changed historically, and for what reasons.

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Last update: 21.02.2013

Active participation

Self-organised

Active participation

Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Title	Year

The research project “Architecture of Display” is concerned with architecture as a device for framing and display. These categories have been important topics in the history of western painting, and the problem of framing and display has received increased attention in more recent scholarship in art history and visual studies. The project “Architectures of Display” intends to render productive this approach and transfer it to the study of architecture, while at the same time hoping to contribute to a more extended understanding of the notion of framing and display. The project proposes to challenge received methodologies of architectural history by looking at architecture as an apparatus, or a medium, for the production of visual and spatial meaning. The project starts out from the assumption that architecture has served as a medium, or as a device, for display throughout history, and that this aspect has indeed been a crucial aspect of architectural thinking and design in vari-ous epochs and building typologies. Conversely, architecture’s “display capacity” has not so far been given adequate theoretical and historical consideration. A systematic analysis of this issue constitutes an important desideratum for current research for three main reasons: First, it will shed light on the complex relationship between the architectural artifact and its observer/user by investigating the aesthetic dimension of architecture’s “response-inviting struc-tures”. In this regard, the project intends to work toward a theory of architectural display that brings together insight from two fields whose overlap has not been considered sufficiently with regard to architecture: visual studies and performance theory. The project is motivated by the assumption that display in architecture cannot properly be grasped by a static understanding of the image still prevalent in visual studies, but that it needs to take into account the notion of an active and mobile user who is involved in the production of the visual entity on display. Second, the inquiry will lay the basis for a better understanding of the relationship of architecture and its place and topography, an aspect still often overlooked in much architectural scholarship. Third, on an institutional level, the project hopes to contribute to an opening of the discipline’s methodologies towards current questions in art history and the human-ities, thereby working toward a re-integration of architectural history within art history. The guiding questions of the investigation are: What is architectural about the cultural technique of display? What is the architectural language of display, and how has it been developed and adapted under changing historical condi-tions? Rather than following a traditional methodological trajectory such as the history of physical construction or of art historical style, the project is situated at the interface of architectural iconology and the aesthetics and history of reception. More specifically, the aim of the research project is, on the one hand, to establish a map of architectural elements and motifs (such as the window, the threshold, the loggia, or the gallery) that have, throughout history, served as devices of display, and to discuss the ways in which these devices produce spatial and visual meaning. Instead of limiting these architectural elements to their functional dimension, they will be considered as bearers of cultural meaning, or as “symbolic forms” (Panofsky 1927, Onians 1988). On the other hand, the inquiry seeks to explore historical responses towards architectures of display based on an analysis of pertaining written sources (such as letters, ekphrastic descriptions, travelogues, treatises, poems, etc.), thereby applying the aesthetics and history of reception to the field of architectural history.The project seeks to undertake a number of relevant historical case studies in which different instances of architec-tural framing and display are discussed. The project will consider architectural display from a broad historical per-spective from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance to the present, with major foci in the profane Italian archi-tecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as the architectural culture of the European metropolis around 1900. Such a wide historical span is necessary in order to underline the significance of the “display capacity” as a basic function of architecture, but also to arrive at a thorough theoretical understanding of how this capacity has changed historically as well as in different typologies, and for what reasons.