Exhibition: 13.12.2019-13.1.2020
Galerie des Architekturmuseums der TU Berlin
Straße des 17. Juni 152, D-10623 Berlin
Opening: 13.12.2019
Curated by: Anna Hougaard, PhD, Dr. Lidia Gasperoni

Call for Artefacts

Over the past decades the diagram has developed into a constitutive, generative medium for architectural design. The diagram as a visual medium facilitates a medial translation of perceived configurations in the thinking process and vice versa. Yet, today diagram is a commonplace term and its generative meaning has almost disappeared in the everyday use of this word. The exhibition aims to reveal an experimental use of diagrams that show their performative and transformative essence, rediscovering and presenting new experimental practices of diagramming architecture.

Architectures are often implicit collections of diagrams – elements of the working tools of the design process. Diagrams thereby participate in the creation of architecture and its spatial organization. Such diagrammatic processes have become central in the transformation and generation of new architecture today, and the diagram is an essential translator between information and forms, data and design products, where numerical translation has spread and become institutionalized.

Different meanings and definitions of the diagram exist within architectural design: from a significant preliminary sketch, to a schematic representation of a design concept. From a guiding principle shown indirectly through various guises within a variety of works to a generative code, which can spawn design families. Diagrams, moreover, are a widely used vessel for generating or communicating concepts; there are digital diagrams and analogue diagrams, conventional and experimental ones. Diagrams and mappings are an important medium for urban development by compressing, translating, and portraying complex relations of scale and material.

Diagrams are closely related to the working media of architects. While the diagram is active in orchestrating thoughts and sensations, the diagram in architecture also relates to architecture’s working media. Diagrams can become generative in the process of creating, materializing, visualizing and communicating architecture. Diagrams are thus important devices of mapping space and traces in architectural design and research. This exhibition is looking for experimental practices of diagramming that challenge conventional diagrams and develop new diagrammatic practices.

We ask for the submission of 3-8 illustrations / diagrams (jpg or other suitable format), details of the dimensions of the work (H x L x W), and an estimation of its value in Euros. In addition, we ask for an abstract (up to 500 words) presenting the diagram artefact, as well as a short CV. The artefacts will be insured during the exhibition, but not during freight. All submissions are requested before July 31, 2019.

Please send to: lidia.gasperoni@tu-berlin.de The notification of the acceptance of the contributions will take place by August 31, 2019. Diagrams should arrive at the Architekturmuseum at the TU Berlin in their final (physical) form by September 30, 2019.

An exhibition catalogue is planned as both print and open access publication in cooperation with the Architekturmuseum at the TU Berlin.

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