The CVAa has taken the occasion of the exhibition of the models by the Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, organized by the Flemish Architecture Institute and deSingel International Art Campus, to organize a one day symposium on models. The symposium came about in close collaboration with the museum STAM Gent, which plans a model exhibition in 2014.
Participation costs 20 € (lunch and coffee included).
Models are remarkable, educationally and visually attractive elements of architectural archives. Through its mission as centre of expertise for the cultural heritage of the built environment, the Centre for Flemish Architectural Archives (CVAa), the heritage department of the Flemish Architecture Institute (VAi), has been aware of the specific problems of model conservation and of the lack of a broader policy on the matter in Flanders. Model collections are as dispersed as collections of architectural archives themselves, and their conservation is often even more precarious than that of plans and drawings. Of recently, moreover, models frequently figure in the public programs of cities, as communication tool in the many ongoing city renewal campaigns (Leuven, Gent, Mechelen, Antwerp…). Unfortunately, these newly produced models often disappear quickly with the closing off of phases of the campaigns. Coordination with city museums and city archives for the conservation of (a selection of) these models is often non-existent.
With a keynote lecture by Oliver Elser, curator of the exhibition ‘Das Architekturmodell – Werkzeug, Fetisch, kleine Utopie’ (DAM Frankfurt 2012) the international background will be set against which a policy for Flanders can be discussed. Another speaker from abroad is Ellen Smit of the Open Maquettedepot of the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut, as a well-known and interesting example of how models can be conserved and valorized. Other speakers come from a Flemish or Brussels context. They will reflect on models and their conservation, either as architects using models in their daily practice, or as curators integrating models in exhibitions, or as (specialized and non-specialized) care-takers of model collections in archival institutions.
The symposium will be closed off with the official launch of the CVAa’s new website.
The keynote lecture will be held in English; the other presentations will be in Dutch, with English PPT presentations. Abstracts in English of all presentations are available.