After successful completion of the course, students are able to contemplate the fields of activity of collecting and exhibiting art and architecture from different perspectives and to establish methods of architectural design and thinking.

The students can create connections between the demands that the logic of an art collection places on the exhibition and the spatial "experience" of the same and an architectural design. They can view museum designs abstracted and distill typological characteristics. They are able to grasp the exhibition of architecture not only in the sense of a portfolio show (which depicts a spatial manifestation happening outside the exhibition space with the tools used in building), but also as a field of action for the architect - as a space of action, a possible form of expression and a tool.

The course examines and connects 'precedents' related to the thematic focus of cultural action on their historical development and current changes. Various fields of activity of the architect are examined as part of a cultural scope of action. Building and the tools and means of expression that are useful for this purpose stand as a specific activity of our occupational field in addition to other activities such as exhibiting, curating, collecting or writing, with their own complementary and stimulating possibilities.

Building theory and cultural action - collecting and exhibiting
Focus of cultural action this semester is on collecting and exhibiting.
Spaces of collecting and exhibiting are considered and related as a design object of the architect in the current change and historical development; the activity of exhibiting is highlighted as a relevant activity of various architects.
 

Part 1
Rooms of collecting and exhibiting
The logic of the art collection in relation to museum designs

I
Observations of current developments:
The Art Museum as an Object of Representation and / or Place of Action (Eva Mair)

II
Historical development of collection and exhibition houses,
The Logic of the (Art) Collection and the Art Museum in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Eva Mair)
 
Part 2
Exhibit Architecture
Collecting and exhibiting as fields of activity of architectural practice

III
Activity of exhibiting as a field of action and tool-building architects (Eva Mair)

IV
1979 - ICAM, CCA, DAM, ...
The role of the Institution Architekturmuseum (Eva Mair)

The lecture is divided into blocks in which students get a deeper insight into one aspect of the lecture content. Selected case studies, which are presented as multi-layered as possible, provide different approaches to similar questions thus commenting on each other. This method of critical commenting, juxtaposing and questioning should then finally be applied by the students themselves in the elaboration of the proof of achievement (see examination modalities).

A guest speaker (theoretician, curator or practicing architect working in the field of exhibiting) will talk about his / her practice and discuss the issues surrounding specific projects and studies.

This year Wouter Davidts speaks on the 16.01.2020 about the collaboration with artists by Ghent-based architects Robbrecht en Daem. https://wouterdavidts.com

The students should connect the contents of the lecture with their own actions and thinking. The questions that are dealt with in the lecture and the way of the critical analysis should be transferred to a project chosen by the students. The objective is not to cover as many aspects of the lecture as possible, but deepening a thought, expanding it and connecting it with one's own interests. Using a suitable method, the observation should be graphically depicted on an A4 sheet. In an oral exam this mental continuation of the lecture contents should be presented briefly and precisely to the lecturer and two other fellow students on the basis of the A4 sheet.