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Exploring the Effect of New Media on Architecture

Event will be held on November 18.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 11/9/2004 12:00:00 AM

The Canadian Centre for Architecture, an international research center and museum in Montréal founded on the conviction that architecture is a public concern, in collaboration with the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, will host an international colloquium to examine the relationships between new media and historical architectural procedures. Entitled "Devices of Design ", the project was initiated in response to the pervasive use of digital media and software technologies in architectural design, representation and construction.

The day-long colloquium will take place at the CCA on November 18, 9 a.m.--5 p.m., and will address both the impact of new media on contemporary architectural theory and practice, as well as the urgent need for better understanding of the archival and conservation issues that such new media and technology raise for research institutions worldwide. The event is open to both professionals and the public.

"Over the last two decades, architectural design and construction have increasingly taken advantage of new developments in computer software. The highly sophisticated instruments at our disposal today have not only transformed the processes of design, but have also fundamentally altered modes of thinking and conceiving the architectural project," wrote Mirko Zardinisenior, consulting curator at the CCA, and Jean Gagnon, executive director of the Daniel Langlois Foundation, who are co-chairs of the event.

Although the effects of current new technologies are already set in place, the event's role is to help the industry "adequately grasp the role and importance of new digital technologies, as well as their status as records of the architectural design process and thus their long-term fate as 'archival documents'". One element of the colloquium will be to reflect on earlier technological revolutions concerning the methods and media related to architectural design. For example, paper and the instruments of drawing, geometrical and mathematical measurements and calculations, analytical descriptions, blueprints, architectural models, the first computer screens and the advanced software available now, are all relevant topics and ideas. The colloquium will also discuss how these new modes of technology have affected attitudes and shifts in the design community when they were introduced.

"Devices of Design" intends to initiate an in-depth discussion among designers, theorists and historians who have explored the crucial relationship between the tools and techniques of design on the one hand, and modes of perceiving and conceiving architecture on the other hand. Accroding to the CCA and the Daniel Langlois Foundation, these are the preliminary steps in the organinzations' long-tern goal of addressing questions concerning archiving and conservation problems that have arisen with the dawn of new-media artifacts. The question of how to archive and preserve these new-media artifacts generates yet abother question: what to preserve and why.

Derrick De Kerckhove, director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto will moderate the event, and will lead a discussion about what ultimately distinguishes contemporary architectural projects from those of the past, and how the devices of design affect those projects.

Other speakers include historians, academics and architects who will address other related topics.

Admission is free. Tthe mandatory registration form can be downloaded at Devices of Design. Or, e-mail devicesofdesign@cca.qc.ca or call 514-939-7020 for the form. Registration closes November 10.

For further information, please contact Benjamin Prosky, head of special projects, at 514-939-7001, ext. 2661 or bprosky@cca.qc.ca.