Abstract
A central aspect to structure, and perhaps what individuals associate the word “structure” with the most, is sorting something in order. Architect and graphic designer Richard Saul Wurman coined the term ‘information architecture’ (IA) over thirty years ago, showing the importance of organizing information in a comprehensive and efficient way, allowing us to understand the formations of living organisms, objects, products, materials, traditions, facts, data, stories, pictures, words, etc.
‘The Sorting Act: (Endless) ways of organizing the Architecture Collections’ aims precisely to underlining the importance of the myriad modes in which information can be displayed. To do so, we have tested several spatial displays for the selection of the enormously valuable models from the Architecture Collections of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Unquestionably, these replicas of works by Le Corbusier, Prouvé, Melnikov, Duiker and the Smithsons, among others, ‘form a record of educational activities in the past, but also a new source of inspiration and of information for the education and research of the present, both within and outside our faculty’. What should thus be the driver for the organization of the archival material and the final exhibition design? How should the models be arranged in an ‘orderly’ manner in the Oostserre? Alphabetically? Chronologically? By magnitude? By color...?
In short: what do we want to communicate when we handle too much information?
We have tested several modes of categorizing the architectural models according to the fields included in a simple spreadsheet (name, building location, construction year, model scale, model size, material, etc). The video produced in parallel to the final configuration of models ordered by size in the Oostserre shows only some of the countless alternative spatial configurations - or sorting acts - that could have been employed to display the material in the room. Each act (not further developed in this exhibition) understands, conveys, communicates, and uses information in a different way. Each act is the result of different concerns, intentions and ideologies and when developed, could tell a completely different story.
As the current era of too-much-information can easily turn into an explosion of non-information (an explosion of data), ‘The Sorting Act: (Endless) ways of organizing the Architecture Collections’ is a - modest - invitation to look critically at information, to curate, to select and to explore possible narratives and stories beyond the valueless use of raw data.
‘The Sorting Act: (Endless) ways of organizing the Architecture Collections’ aims precisely to underlining the importance of the myriad modes in which information can be displayed. To do so, we have tested several spatial displays for the selection of the enormously valuable models from the Architecture Collections of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Unquestionably, these replicas of works by Le Corbusier, Prouvé, Melnikov, Duiker and the Smithsons, among others, ‘form a record of educational activities in the past, but also a new source of inspiration and of information for the education and research of the present, both within and outside our faculty’. What should thus be the driver for the organization of the archival material and the final exhibition design? How should the models be arranged in an ‘orderly’ manner in the Oostserre? Alphabetically? Chronologically? By magnitude? By color...?
In short: what do we want to communicate when we handle too much information?
We have tested several modes of categorizing the architectural models according to the fields included in a simple spreadsheet (name, building location, construction year, model scale, model size, material, etc). The video produced in parallel to the final configuration of models ordered by size in the Oostserre shows only some of the countless alternative spatial configurations - or sorting acts - that could have been employed to display the material in the room. Each act (not further developed in this exhibition) understands, conveys, communicates, and uses information in a different way. Each act is the result of different concerns, intentions and ideologies and when developed, could tell a completely different story.
As the current era of too-much-information can easily turn into an explosion of non-information (an explosion of data), ‘The Sorting Act: (Endless) ways of organizing the Architecture Collections’ is a - modest - invitation to look critically at information, to curate, to select and to explore possible narratives and stories beyond the valueless use of raw data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Delft University of Technology, Faculteit Bouwkunde |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |