Start semester
40 331 Exhibiting Architecture: Forensics, Fashion, Ecologies
Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
In this seminar students get to work on an exhibition proposal for a museum in northern England that explores the relation between architecture, dress, room and landscape through studying the “attributes” of an amazing seventeenth century noble-woman. The provisional exhibition title is “Lady Anne Clifford: Forensics, Fashion and Ecology” and it will open at the Abbott Hall Museum, Cumbria, UK in Spring 2025.
In the seminar students will use architectural means – scanning, modelmaking and sectional drawings – to make archival information speak. Anne Clifford moved in life from being a wronged heiress to a powerful political actor, and used dress, representation, building and physical travel to secure her ends. Student work will address the sectional space this endeavour occupied, between the detail of costume, architectural interiors and exteriors and the open landscape.
The seminar aims to combine historical study and architectural technique to increase our awareness of material and ecological links, at scales from the jewel to the region.
The course is carried out in collaboration with Professor Judith Clark, London College of Fashion and Ryan Cook, Intermediate Unit 9, The Architectural Association.
Knowledge:
• Practiced conceptual thinking about the communicative potential of architectural mediation techniques
Skills:
• Learnt basic research techniques based on using archival information
• Demonstrated how the analytical techniques they already have can be applied to historical material in order to produce vibrant new design propositions.
• Developed precise writing techniques to caption an exhibition display
General competence:
• Evolved tech
In the first part of the term, working in small groups, students will define a sectional condition that can be reconstructed from the archival information surrounding Anne Clifford. They will research the means of architectural mediation that could make this condition speak (drawing, model-making, scanning). This research will be contextualised by seminars that provide an account of the cultural history surrounding the both the period, the persons studied and aspects of method investigation. In the second phase the groups will construct the architectural mediations of the sections they have chosen, and develop ideas about how these might be used in the exhibition space at Abbot Hall.
The elective concludes during elective week with a field trip to Northen England both the look at a series of architectural spaces that relate to the project assignment and for a final critique of the exhibition proposals in the gallery space in Cumbria. Students need to finance the costs for travel from Norway to the UK and for three-four nights accommodation. Those who remain in Oslo during the field trip will be allowed an additional three days to complete the main assignment, particularly proposals about the exhibition design, and will participate in the final review digitally.
The course has weekly half day seminars on Tuesdays alternating between digital and physical format.
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project assignment | - | Pass / fail |