ARCHITECTURE: Archaeology of the Digital

Archaeology of the Digital is part of a multi-year research project launched by the CCA to investigate the development and use of computers in architecture, and the first step in the CCA’s strategic objective of creating a collection of digital architecture. The project, spanning a period of 3 years is a research around two crucial under-addressed topics: how to collect, archive, and catalogue digital material and how to display and make it accessible to the public and to researchers.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Canadian Center of Architecture Archive

The third and final installment of the Archaeology of the Digital series entitled “Archaeology of the Digital. Complexity and Convention”, in which 25 seminal projects are collected, researched and catalogued, opened at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The exhibition demonstrates ways digital design has influenced architecture and the design process in the past decades. The exhibition draws from archival material from 15 exemplary projects, both built and unbuilt, by international firms in the ‘90s through the ‘00s, by: Van Berkel & Bos Architects, Peter Kulka with Ulrich Königs, Kolatan/Mac Donald Studio, Foreign Office Architects, Neil M. Denari Architects, Reiser + Umemoto, Morphosis, OCEAN North, Office dA, Zaha Hadid Architects, Preston Scott Cohen, Testa & Weiser, COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, Cloud 9 and R&Sie(n). The curatorial method of the first two exhibitions “Archaeology of the Digital” in 2013 gave emphasis at digital architecture from the late ‘80s to the early 90s through four seminal projects that established by Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Chuck Hoberman and Shoei Yoh. In the second exhibition “Media and Machines” in 2014 the architects had a deeper engagement with the digital. The exhibition presented: Asymptote Architecture, Karl Chu, Bernard Cache, dECOi Architects, ONL (Oosterhuis-Lénárd) and NOX, with projects extending from the design of buildings to the design of interactive media, interactive robotic mechanisms, drafting machines based on the Catastrophe theory, generative algorithms, and the writing of disciplinary and cultural theories.

Info: Curator: Greg Lynn, The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), 1920 rue Baile, Montréal, Duration: 10/5-2/10/16, Days & Hours:  Wed & Fri 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-17:00, www.cca.qc.ca