image archive. an operating space for architecture videos paola ricco, image hybrid architectural...

Image ARCHIVE.An operating space for architecture videos

Paola Ricco, Image

Hybrid Architectural Archives: Creating, Managing and Using Digital Archives. June 10-12, 2009

Image ARCHIVE. An operating space for architecture videos. Paola Ricco


Image ARCHIVE is a multimedia archive dedicated to the collection, conservation and valorisation of architecture videos.



Image ARCHIVE started in 1997 as a complementary activity to the BEYOND MEDIA architecture festival in Florence.



The archive collects about 2.500 video works created by architects, artists, filmmakers, documentary directors, and students.

During its activity, Image ARCHIVE has been in contact with more than 2.000 authors: most of them are architects.



Our interest in architecture videos is a consequence of Image’s main activity of observing and supporting communication practices between architecture and media.



As theoretical and historical studies pointed out, architects developed a growing confidence with media all along the 20th century.

As a consequence, the architecture project tends towards a public dimension.

Ben van Berkel under the spotlights during an interview



Video is one of the tools that architects have at their disposal to mediate projects and to extend the field of their own design research.



In the analysis of video works, we are particularly interested in the viewpoints of the architects.



Architects produce videos:

- to investigate the characteristics and potentialities of a project, and its performances;- to show in exhibitions;- to participate in competitions;- to substantiate publication projects.



As video authors, architects may work with animation techniques developed during the stage of the project’s conception, growth and publicity.



UNStudio

The video is a means of expression which is capable of giving shape to the diagrammatic representation of the project and to fully express its transformation into architectural spaces.

Some significant examples

Image ARCHIVE, an operating space for architecture videos. Paola Ricco


UNStudio, The Living Tomorrow Animation, NL 2001, 1’47’’



Zaha Hadid Architects

The video is a tool of compositional, spatial and visual verification. It describes a constellation of micro-visions which are subdued so as not to compete with the project’s physical models.




Zaha Hadid Architects, The JVC Hotel, UK 2001, 1’47’’



As video producers, architects cooperate with other creative artists in order to fully exploit the potential of moving images and to produce powerful narrations of the project.



This may produce retriactive effects on the way the architect conceives and develops his projects.



NO.MAD Arquitectos / Muscolino+Monaco

The cooperation between architect and video-maker is direct. The videos are the outcomes of this synergy. For the architect, the video serves as a tool capable of revealing his design poetics.




Simone Muscolino, Francesco Monaco (architecture by NO.MAD Arquitectos)YELLOW FEVER [Lasesarre Football Stadium], ES 2005, 5’10’’



Alsop / Squint/Opera

Squint/Opera interpretes the debunking and disenchanted spirit of Will Alsop, and completes it with some forms of creativity which permit the project to be boosted by very valid communicative and narrative effects. And to be easily presented to a wider public.




Neutral (architecture by Zaha Hadid Architects), The JVC Hotel, UK 2001, 1’47’’Squint/Opera (architecture by Alsop Architects), Bradford Squared, UK 2006, 4’02’’



Fuksas / Macelloni

Architecture as seen from outside. The video-maker’s point of view is useful for the architect to frame the social dimension of his project, to perceive the nuances of the relationship which exists between the project or urban transformation and the public sphere.




Filippo Macelloni (architecture by Massimiliano Fuksas), Torino, Porta Palazzo, IT 2004, 6’06’’



COLLECTING VIDEOS.

Image ARCHIVE is a center for the collection of documents which are oftentimes arranged in a dismembered, spread-out way in a number of different places, from the microcosms of architecture studios to the macrocosm of web-platforms and online video sharing.



PRESERVATION / VALORISATION.

Image ARCHIVE aims to convey architecture videos but it has also developed a specific competence to create relations surrounding the collected videos in order to construct and stimulate discussions on architecture.



CIRCULATING VIDEOS.

BEYOND MEDIA, international festival for architecture and media organized by Image since 1997, is our most important activity to provide visibility for video productions and use videos as a vehicle for debate on contemporary architectural projects.



BEYOND MEDIA 2003: INTIMACY. A scene from the exhibition area

BEYOND MEDIA 2009: VISIONS. Florence, July 9 to 17, 2009



As holders of an archive, which is partially a digital archive, we asked ourselves which models we should be looking at.

Should we look at the more well-established archiving institutions or should we rather accept the dynamics which are suggested by the Web?



Is it necessary to collect those materials which, in theory, are already preserved in their authors' archives?



The activity of the Image ARCHIVE, while being interested all audio-visual documents produced by the architects, aims at a wider observation of architecture videos as an expression of contemporary architectural culture and of its relations with the media.



Is it necessary to collect documents when the Web is nurturing huge reservoirs of materials which are also endowed with classification tools?



The orderliness provided by the Web does not satisfy the need for a balanced and personal collection where one can find traces and information that go beyond that which is offered by a system of keywords and automatic relations.



A considerable part of contemporary architectural production tends to become part of a shared knowledge, one that is widespread in various ambits. The architect's documents, among which are videos, are more and more often dropped into the mediatic sphere, used to affect the public and shared in the Web.



Given the public use of the architect's documents, the time gap between production and the use of those materials is ever more reduced.

It could turn out to be useful to complete the model of a long term preservation with the more immediate model of sharing.



If once upon a time the archive was something to be protected and secluded, and was often quite inaccessible, today these many documents -even videos- that describe the architectural project constitute a very large repository which many are encouraged to tap into.

Superstudio, early ‘70s, on top of the Arcetri hill, Florence

image archive. an operating space for architecture videos paola ricco, image hybrid architectural...

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