“Cyclops Family Portrait” - Joshua Longo

BUILDING WITH DIGITAL FRAGMENTS

CCA Experimental History Projects Research, Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2017

From Piranesi and Soane through the Labroustes and Viollet-le-Duc to Scarpa and Eisenman, documenting and reconstructing buildings from the past has long been a method for generating visions of new architecture. Digital tools such as photogrammetry, structured-light scanning, reflectance transformation imaging, and impulse response creation enable us to document historic spaces and objects in minimally invasive ways. Such techniques are calling forth new scholarship on the concepts of originality, copying, preservation, and reconstruction, and suggest post-human forms of historical vision and sensing.

The event will be divided into two panels, with the first offering commentary on historic and contemporary practices and the second exploring case-studies of contemporary techniques.

Panel 1: 5:00p.m. – 6:00p.m.

Introduction by Organizers:

  • Jonathan Massey, Dean and Professor of Architecture, University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

  • David Gissen, Professor of Architecture and of Visual and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts

Presentations by Participants:

  • Brendan Cormier, Lead curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Partnership at the Victoria and Albert Museum; Curator of A World of Fragile Parts

  • Mari Lending, Professor, Department of Form, Theory and History. The Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Founding member, OCCAS (the Oslo Center for Critical Architectural Studies)

  • Pamela Karimi, Associate Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Associate Professor of Art History, College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Group Discussion / audience Q&A

Panel 2: 6:15p.m. – 7:30p.m.

Introduction by Organizers:

  • Jonathan Massey, Dean and Professor of Architecture, University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
    David Gissen, Professor of Architecture and of Visual and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts

Presentations by Participants:

  • Morehshin Allahyari, Artist/Activist/Educator; Artist and Research in Residence at Eyebeam

  • Mark Foster Gage, Assistant Dean and Associate Professor, Yale School of Architecture; Founder, Mark Foster Gage Architects

  • Brandon Clifford, Assistant Professor, MIT; co-founder, Matter Design; 2017-2018 Rome Prize Fellow

  • Carla Schroer, Founder, Director, and Board Member, Cultural Heritage Imaging

Group Discussion / audience Q&A (initially focusing on Panel 2, then expanding to incorporate the first panel topics and speakers)

This event is part of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial’s CAB Sessions series and is organized by the University of Michigan and California of College of the Arts. It will take place in the Chicago Cultural Center’s Randolph Square.