Search

Title:
American framing: the architecture of a specific anonymity

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$59.95
(available to order)

Summary:
From its origins in the Midwest in the early nineteenth century, the technique of light timber framing—also known at the time as "Chicago construction"—quickly came to underwrite the territorial and ideological expansion of the United States. Softwood construction was inherently practical, as its materials were readily available and required little skill to assemble. The result was a built environment that erased typological and class distinctions: no amount of money can buy you a better 2 x 4. This fundamental sameness paradoxically underlies the American culture of individuality, unifying all superficial differences. It has been both a cause and effect of the country’s high regard for novelty, in contrast with the stability that is often assumed to be essential to architecture. "American framing" is a visual and textual exploration of the social, environmental, and architectural conditions and consequences of this ubiquitous form of construction. For architecture, it offers a story of an American project that is bored with tradition, eager to choose economy over technical skill, and accepting of a relaxed idea of craft in the pursuit of something useful and new—the forming of an architecture that enables architecture.

Title:
The Museum Is Not Enough, Num.10-14

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$27.00
(available in store)

Summary:
As a follow-up of a first volume published in 2019 that built on years of thematic investigations, the book focuses on how the institution works out and on these questions by rethinking its tools and how it relates to others. ''The Museum Is Not Enough'' (no. 10–14) gathers conversations among curators, artists, academics, and architects on how institutions engage multiple contexts, objects, and perspectives: reflecting on strategies to unlearn and decentre established ways of seeing and doing; looking closely at how to describe and document archival sources while interrogating the stakes, and often the harm, in separating cultural objects from their context; questioning the relationship between institutions and “the public”; and discussing curatorial tools—and particularly film—that collapse research and display, observation and action, here and there. Underlying these reflections is the realization that the museum’s activity can’t be constructed from a fixed position. Unless the questions it deals with are observed from another angle, it is hard not to perpetuate the thinking that created them. The book responds to an urgent need to equip the institution to understand how things around it are rapidly changing, and the importance of conveying and discussing this instability. Here, the museum gets outside its physical walls to explore on-site, to talk with people, to connect and activate collaborators, to design conditions for different forms of dialogue to happen on the ground.

Title:
The museum is not enough

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$25.00
(available to order)

Summary:
'The Museum Is Not Enough' is the result of collective reflections on architecture, contemporary social concerns, institutions, and the public undertaken by the CCA in recent years. Building on years of thematic investigations and of a continued questioning of the role of cultural institutions and the issues they face today, the book puts forward the CCA’s own positions and opens them up to a dialogue with designers, curators, photographers, publishers, and other institutions who ask themselves similar questions.

Title:
Le musée ne suffit pas

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$25.00
(available to order)

Summary:
« Le musée ne suffit pas » est le fruit de réflexions collectives sur l’architecture, les préoccupations sociales contemporaines, les institutions et le public, effectuées au CCA ces dernières années. Alimenté par le questionnement continu que mène le CCA sur le rôle des institutions culturelles et leurs problèmes actuels, « Le musée ne suffit pas » permet d’amorcer des discussions avec des partenaires qui se posent des questions semblables.

Title:
CCA on view

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$10.95
(available in store)

Summary:
"CCA on View" is a visual guidebook to the exhibitions produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture since its founding in 1979. From "The Preservation and Conservation of Prints and Drawings of Ernest Cormier (1885–1980)", mounted in the lobby of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s first office space in 1982, to" Besides, History", exhibited in 2017 in the main galleries of the CCA’s current building at 1920, rue Baile, each exhibition is presented through installation views, photographs of exhibition objects, previously unpublished working documents, and short descriptive statements. These artifacts, interspersed with commentary from CCA directors, curators, and collaborators, illustrate the central positions and arguments taken up in each project. "CCA on View" delves into the institutional archives to highlight the character and trajectory of the CCA’s approach to curatorial research.

Title:
CCA à l'affiche

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$10.95
(available in store)

Summary:
« CCA à l’affiche » est un guide visuel des expositions produites par le Centre Canadien d’Architecture depuis sa fondation en 1979. De « La préservation et conservation des dessins et estampes d’Ernest Cormier (1885-1990) », installé dans le hall des premiers bureaux du CCA en 1982, à l’exposition « L’histoire, par ailleurs » présentée dans les salles principales du bâtiment de la rue Baile en 2017 – chaque projet est décrit brièvement et présenté à travers des vues d’installation, des photographies d’objets exposés et des documents de travail jusqu’alors inédits. Ces artéfacts, intercalés d’interjections par des directeurs, curateurs et collaborateurs du CCA, illustrent le propos développé dans chaque projet. « CCA à l’affiche » plonge dans les archives institutionnelles du CCA pour mettre en lumière le caractère et la trajectoire de sa démarche curatoriale au fil du temps.