Journal of Architectural Education

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Marking a New Territory

ICAM and CCA and the Expansion of Curatorial Practices for Architecture

Fabrizio Gallanti

To cite this article: Fabrizio Gallanti (2014) Marking a New Territory, Journal of Architectural
Education, 68:1, 61-66, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2013.865476

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2013.865476

Published online: 14 Mar 2014.

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 Marking a New Territory
ICAM and CCA and the Expansion of
Curatorial Practices for Architecture
The International Confederation of
Architectural Museums (ICAM) and
the Canadian Centre for Architecture
(CCA) were founded in the summer
of 1979. The international organiza-
tion that brought together different
architecture museums and centers
of architecture was created during
an international conference held
in Helsinki in August, on the forti-
fied island of Suomenlinna. Juhani
Pallasmma, at that time the direc-
tor of the Finnish Museum of
Architecture, was the promoter
of this initiative. It is useful to
outline the historic and cultural
contexts underlying these events.
In reconstructing the history of the
initiative, Pallasmaa recalled how
the idea of a meeting that gathered
different architectural institutions
together came about spontaneously
at the inauguration of the Centre
Pompidou in January 1977. At this
inauguration, the representatives of
approximately twelve museums were
invited to celebrate the founding of
the new department of architecture
and design of the Centre Pompidou.
During informal conversations on
that occasion, it became obvious that
there were several other architecture
museums, largely in Eastern Europe,
absent from the Paris inauguration.
These conversations gave way to
an initiative to build an international
network of people and institutions,
with the objective of helping the
exchange of ideas and information
about architecture. Also, the aim
was to generate future collabora-
tions between institutions based in
Western countries with those from
the Communist bloc, especially in
Fabrizio Gallanti
Canadian Centre for Architecture
light of the fact that the Schusev
Museum of Moscow (founded in 1945)
and the Finnish Museum (founded
in 1956) were the oldest museums
dedicated to architecture. In the
political climate of the 1970s (the
Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan
in December 1979), Helsinki was
a fairly neutral place selected in
order to facilitate more widespread
participation. During preparations
for the event coordinated by Aarno
Ruusuvuori, the director of the
Finnish Museum, and by Pallasmaa,
who was appointed its new direc-
tor shortly before the conference,
the list of institutions went from
the twelve represented in Paris
to approximately fifty. In the end,
thirty-six representatives from
twenty-five museums and centers
of architecture from fifteen differ-
ent countries (with a substantial
component of Scandinavian institu-
tions, Eastern European and various
other representatives from the
United States, Canada, Germany,
and France) all gathered to discuss a
range of different themes, including
the role and structure of museums
of architecture, the exchange of
information and research materials,
the experience of archives, libraries,
exhibitions, and research, and the
potential for future collaboration
among the museums.
The founding of the ICAM led
to a newfound status for architec-
tural culture, by supporting a broader
discourse to which some of the best
practices of other disciplines could
be applied. Specifically, the best
practices in preservation could be
derived from restoration experiences
JAE 68: 1
within the visual arts, the best prac-
tices of museum studies could be
applied to the creation of collections
and of architect’s archives, the best
practices of museum outreach could
be applied to a wide array of activi-
ties to engage audiences, including
publications, public programming,
and above all exhibitions. The deci-
sion to affiliate the ICAM with the
ICOM (International Council of
Museums—founded in 1946 and
composed of over 20,000 museums)
was a response to the need to build
a framework for a new type of insti-
tution. This new institution would
provide stability to a previously fluid
museology tradition. Throughout
the course of the twentieth cen-
tury, a series of significant episodes
cumulatively articulated a moment in
which architecture functioned as an
important focus of curatorial prac-
tices. If pioneering examples such as
the Weissenhof Siedliung in Stuttgart in
1927 acknowledged the promotional
potential of modern architecture
through the display of full-scale
models—real buildings designed by
Bruno Taut, Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe, and Le Corbusier, some of the
most prominent architects of the
time—then emerging architecture
was subsequently supported by a
number of other institutions such as
the Triennale di Milano that established
its new headquarters in the Palazzo
dell’Arte in 1933, and the creation of
the first department of architecture
and design at MoMA in 1932. For
MoMA, during the postwar years, the
architecture and design exhibitions
functioned as promotional venues for
possible new future lifestyles.
  61
Figure 1. The American
Lawn: Surface
of Everyday Life,
installation view at
CCA, 1998. (© CCA).
With the foundation of the ICAM,
and throughout the 1980s, a new
paradigm supported the hypothesis of
history as a powerful tool with which
to interpret architecture, facilitating
connections to notions of its heritage.
This position, already the basis for
the foundation of institutions such as
the Musée des Monuments Français
of 1795, that became the Cité de
l’Architecture of 2007, could equally
be recognized in the activities leading
up to the creation of the architecture
section for the Biennale di Venezia in
1976, which featured a series of exhi-
bitions providing historic overviews
of modern architecture, curated by
Vittorio Gregotti. This eventually led
to the first international exhibition
in 1980, curated by Paolo Portoghesi
and entitled, “The Presence of the
Past.” One might consider the found-
ing of Do.Co.Mo.Mo. International
in 1988—an organization that has
subsequently spread worldwide and is
dedicated to the study and protection
of modern architecture—as part of a
wider tendency in which to situate the
founding of the ICAM and the CCA.
During the last twenty-five years,
the events associated with the birth
62 Marking a New Territory
of an international association, such
as ICAM, and the founding of hybrid
institutions, such as the CCA, offer
an opportunity to identify some
of the elements that have come to
distinguish the constant expansion
of the curatorial area dedicated to
architecture. It is worth remember-
ing that a key figure is instrumental
in the overlap between these differ-
ent histories—Phyllis Lambert was a
member of the first committee of the
ICAM and is the Founding Director
and Chair of the Board of Trustees of
the CCA.
Gradually, over the course of
the twentieth-century, a paradigm
of discussion and dissemination
of architecture that relied mainly
upon the publishing of books and
journals has been accompanied by a
complementary cultural system that
includes exhibitions, biennials, and
triennials, fairs, and various other
temporary initiatives. Within this
context, the CCA has functioned as
an active agent of experimentation
and innovation in terms of methods
and formats, as well as a platform for
absorbing and reacting to contem-
porary discourses. The reading of
the CCA as a hybrid entity emanates
from its organizational structure and
its institutional mandate. In fact, the
institution combines four elements.
The first is a collection, composed
of a library, architectural photo-
graphs, drawings and prints, and a
compendium of archives that include
the research and practice materials
of different artists and architects
such as Cedric Price, Aldo Rossi,
Gordon Matta-Clark, John Hejduk,
James Stirling, Peter Eisenman, and
Abalos & Herreros. The second is a
museum, which engages the public
through exhibitions and public and
educational programs. The third is
an editorial component that channels
content, beyond the specific physi-
cal location of the CCA, through
publications, both print and digital.
And the fourth is a research center
that hosts international scholars
who use its resources and partici-
pate in collective research projects
that enhance thematic areas that
are deemed crucial to the CCA and
its mission. This organizational
structure does not imply a hierar-
chical subdivision, as a constantly
intertwined dialogue among these

disparate components is central to
the curatorial approach of the CCA.
The first phase of the CCA’s
history coincided with a series of
exhibitions that focused on the col-
lection that was being gradually
curated and enriched. During those
years, the CCA sought to establish
procedures for the conservation
and presentation of materials that
had not been considered, either for
archiving or exhibiting, at its incep-
tion: technical drawings, sketches
and design process notes, study
models, and photographs both for
documenting building construction
and for publication purposes. While
collecting, the CCA established and
adapted protocols, policies, and pro-
cedures to suit its objectives and to
ensure the stability and continuity of
its acquisitions.
In combination with displays
meant to disseminate and promote
knowledge and expertise about its
collection, the CCA also conceived
of exhibitions as instruments for
revealing the curatorial culture
around architecture. The exhibition
“Cities of Artificial Excavation: The
Work of Peter Eisenman, 1978–1988,”
Gallanti
curated by Jean-François Bédard
in 1994, involved a profound physi-
cal alteration of the CCA galleries,
which became, in and of themselves,
new architectural works. A thematic
approach to exhibitions, already
inherent to several of the ongoing
research and exhibition projects,
was strongly expressed with “Scenes
of the World to Come: European
Architecture and the American
Challenge, 1893–1960,” curated by
Jean-Louis Cohen in 1995. Here,
heterogeneous materials, in part
from the CCA archives, in part on
loan, allowed for a multidisciplinary
narrative that supported the over-
arching theme. This same approach
guided the exhibition “The American
Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life” of
1998, for which the curatorial agenda
and design of the exhibition space
were integrated under the aegis of a
team that included Georges Teyssot,
Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio,
Beatriz Colomina, Alessandra
Ponte, and Mark Wigley (Figure 1).
The exhibition “Mies in America,”
curated by Phyllis Lambert in 2001,
was part of a complex historiographi-
cal project that led to an important
JAE 68: 1
Figure 2. Mies in
America, installation
view at CCA, 2001. (©
CCA).
publication, conceived as a stand-
alone, scholarly volume on Mies,
rather than merely a catalog to an
exhibition (Figure 2). The exhibition
“Out of the Box: Price Rossi Stirling
+ Matta-Clark,” curated by Mirko
Zardini in 2003, featured a number
of recent acquisitions to the CCA
archives, thereby stressing an “open-
ness” that was increasingly becoming
part of the institution’s mission.
With Zardini’s appointment
as CCA director and chief cura-
tor in 2005, a series of exhibitions,
some co-curated with Giovanna
Borasi, curator for contemporary
architecture, confirmed the the-
matic model as key to the CCA’s
curatorial mission: advancing the
exploration of ideas and projects
in dialogue with the contexts from
which they emerged. These exhibi-
tions have stimulated contemporary
debates on architecture by provid-
ing interpretative tools with which
to also understand other disciplines
and broader cultural phenomena in
which architecture is immersed and
to which it responds. “Sense of the
City” (2005) considered a new read-
ing of urbanity, through a sensorial
  63
Figure 3. 1973: Sorry,
Out of Gas, installation
view at CCA, 2007. (©
CCA).

Figure 4. Actions:
What You Can Do With
the City, installation
view at CCA, 2008.
(© CCA).

64 Marking a New Territory

 Figure 5. Imperfect
Health: The
Medicalization
of Architecture,
installation view at
CCA, 2011. (© CCA).

Figure 6. Some Ideas

on Living in London
and Tokyo by Stephen
Taylor and Ryue
Nishizawa, installation
view at CCA, 2008.
(© CCA).

Gallanti JAE 68: 1   65

Figure 7. Other Space
Odysseys: Greg Lynn,
Michael Maltzan,
Alessandro Poli,
installation view at
CCA, 2010. (© CCA).
approach; “Gilles Clement/Philippe
Rahm—Environment: Approaches
for Tomorrow” (2006) examined
different approaches to engag-
ing environmental and ecological
topics through design; “1973: Sorry,
Out of Gas” (2007) focused on the
energy crisis, its impact on archi-
tectural thinking, and subsequent
technological development (Figure
3); “Actions: What You Can Do with
the City” (2008) gathered and show-
cased ninety-nine forms of informal
urban activism, offering a spectrum
of spontaneous, bottom-up prac-
tices, constituting alternatives to
more “established” architectural
ideologies (Figure 4); “Speed Limits”
(2009) addressed the impact of veloc-
ity on architecture; “Journeys: How
Traveling Fruit, Ideas and Buildings
Rearrange Our Environment” (2010)
tackled the theme of migration and
its consequences on territories;
and finally, “Imperfect Health: the
Medicalization of Architecture”
(2011) examined the new moral and
political agendas of health concerns
(Figure 5). Collectively, all of these
exhibitions are explorations of the
cross-pollination of culture and
contemporary society, through the
66 Marking a New Territory
simultaneous lenses of architecture, and San Rocco. Between 2007 and
urbanism, and aesthetic practices. 2011, he was the architecture editor
Seen as a whole, the initiatives at Abitare. He is currently the
developed by the CCA, and the Associate Director of Programs at
transformations of its activities over the Canadian Centre for Architecture
the years, can be read as contribu- in Montreal, where he has curated
tions to a cultural context in flux that exhibitions and public programs.
has gradually witnessed the consoli-
dation of architecture as a cultural Note
object. The CCA is not particularly 1 Quote from ICAM charter, republished in Juhani
Pallasmaa, “ICAM. 30 Years. The Founding
interested in celebrating architec-
of a Confederation,” in ICAM Print 03 (Wien:
ture as an isolated object. Rather, it International Confederation of Architectural
embraces the principles embodied in Museums, 2009).
the foundation of the ICAM in 1979:
“By individual and corporate effort
to foster a critical attitude towards
architecture and its allied fields.”1
After twenty-five years, this critical
principle is still relevant, and contin-
ues to be a stimulating institutional
mandate for an organization that
has led the charge in the curating of
architecture culture.
Author Biography
Fabrizio Gallanti (Genoa, Italy, 1969)
is an architect who has taught archi-
tecture theory and design in Chile
(Pontificia Universidad Catolica,
Santiago) and Italy (Politecnico di
Milano). He contributes to publica-
tions such as A+U, CLOG, Domus,