Working in archives or with collections always holds to me the promise of what Dutch historian Johan Huizinga called a historical sensation. He describes the sensation of being swept off your feet when coming into contact with historical relics, of being immersed in history, and enjoying that immersion and the direct contact with history it gives you. I must admit that I have never actually experienced such a historical sensation. I have tried, though. But it is a bit like falling in love, it is no use forcing these feelings – they just have to happen. The lack of a historical sensation on my part, however, does not mean that I do not enjoy archival work. There is always that thrill and excitement when opening boxes or files – maybe you will find something that others have overlooked or you will be able to see some new connection, a different meaning.

Working with the CCA Collection has been a treat because the collection is so extensive and the people working there know it very well. What I was very excited about was seeing things in real for the first time, even when you knew the objects as representations from books and magazines. Just one example would be the Splitting works by Gordon Matta-Clark. The image of the split house, seen from the front has been used so many times and we all know it. Now I could hold that image and look at other images as well that showed the house from different angles. Equally thrilling was seeing things you didn’t know existed, like a notebook by the same artist/architect in which he cut little rectangular shapes through all the pages in the notebook. These holes formed together the basic outline of a house, a study for his project Splitting.

I have looked, during the month I spent at the CCA, at some 50 books, some 10 architectural toys or related objects, more than 100 architectural drawings and around 60 letters related to Cedric Price’s Fun Palace and Matta-Clark’s architectural work. I took almost 500 pictures of books, articles, objects, drawings, notebooks, advertisements and the likes. I tried to keep track of all this on the weblog ccapresentation.wordpress.com.

From adding content and ideas to this website, some themes emerged that I will work on further once I get home again. These themes are paper architecture, (digital) technologies as formative tools in the history of architecture and the importance of representation in architecture. Even though I started out looking at Google Earth, these themes emerged and I will now work on finding my way back from these themes to Google Earth. Just one manifest connection between these two areas is the fact that architects as well as ‘fans’ sometimes use Google Earth as a platform for paper architecture and unbuilt designs. And needless to say, as a powerful and popular digital tool and representational device, Google Earth influences architectural practice as well as thinking.

Maaike Lauwaert, 2008-2009 Visiting Scholar
March 2009

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