Archives of the Ordinary: On the Archive of Research
Paper presented at Architecture Archives of the Future,
Jaap Bakema Study Centre x Nieuwe Instituut, Netherlands,
November 22-23, 2023.
Jaap Bakema Study Centre x Nieuwe Instituut, Netherlands,
November 22-23, 2023.
Not all archives are created equal: some are treasured, while others are trashed. During my recently completed PhD on the architectural activities of a post-war Norwegian construction company, I primarily dealt with the latter. Deemed too ordinary, the company’s projects were hardly recorded, and the few remaining archives were quickly discarded, considered not valuable for future generations. To fill these gaps and absences, I had to chase archives long lost and dismembered, cross-referencing materials from distant disciplines. While the company was absent in professional architectural magazines, it was very much present in the experience of ordinary people, as revealed by its many appearances in lay press sources. Writing this kind of history required stitching a kilt patchwork of mentions in hundreds of local and regional newspapers, Yellow Pages, advertisements, and local history books, tracing names and connections previously untraceable.
This process was akin to studying fossils, investigating “imprints, tracks and trails of a once-living thing.” In a self-referential manner, the search yielded not only a re-assembled image of the company but also a new archive of research. My PhD defence was then accompanied by an exhibition titled Marginalia that offered a behind-the-scenes view of architectural research in the making and showed the many archival and media pieces that, yet again, did not make it into the manuscript. Not a curated collection but rather an assemblage of notes, images, and archival documents accumulated over the last four years, the exhibition exposed the many indeterminate detours that research can take. The final product—a published monograph—was shaped by the conventions of academic research and the physical constraints of a paper medium. The exhibition, on the other hand, made the research outcome more open, as the visitors interacted with original photographs and archival materials and recognised their homes, schools and playgrounds in the company's many projects.