Disclosing Architecture: 18 Stories of Heritage and InnovationDisclosing Architecture: 18 Stories of Heritage and Innovation

Text Suzanne Mulder

Several developments call for a new approach to collecting policy, including: a changing concept of heritage (#1); the growth of other ‘bottom-up’ forms of (architecture-related) collecting (#2); the changing role of heritage institutions (#3); the changing meaning of the archive for design practice (#4); and the influence of the digitisation of design practice on archival practice (born digital) (#5).

There have been a number of paradigm shifts in the heritage field in recent decades. One of these shifts is an emphasis on the social value of heritage. In this view, heritage is not necessarily about preserving objects and ‘old things’ as frozen in time, but is seen as a dynamic, cultural process. Whereas in recent decades the Netherlands has mainly invested in the heritage itself (the archive collection) and in the quality of the care of the heritage, this new approach focuses less on the heritage itself and more on people and their relationship with and response to the heritage.

This view is reflected in the European Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, which was recently signed by the Netherlands (in January 2024). It defines heritage as a human right. Everyone should be able to participate in the identification, preservation and transmission of heritage.

In recent years, the Nieuwe Instituut has incorporated this notion of heritage as a cultural process into all kinds of activities and projects. The collection is not the only place for heritage. Rather, exhibitions, public programmes, performances and workshops are also places where people engage in practices of remembering and passing on knowledge.

This approach to heritage should be reflected in the collecting policy and new forms of public participation in decision-making should be high on the agenda (also in terms of support). There should be a move away from the traditional view of collecting by an internal group of experts, with the public treated as passive recipients, towards more opportunities for public discussion and negotiation about the meaning and role of heritage. More people should be involved in defining and preserving (and passing on) heritage; and different perspectives should be included in collecting.

Another related development affecting the institute’s collecting activities is the emergence of all kinds of heritage preservation outside of official archive managers, partly under the influence of digitisation and the ‘self-documenting society’. There are many examples of communities operating outside of traditional structures and sharing their history and stories in different ways on the internet. In this way, new stories and different perspectives on architecture are recorded, and different frameworks of evaluation become visible.

Examples include the many local participatory heritage websites, for example around cities and neighbourhoods. These are online initiatives in which citizens play an active role in enriching and developing architectural and urban heritage. But internationally oriented architecture platforms and repositories such as ArchDaily, Archilovers, Dezeen and social media networks – Instagram, Pinterest – have also become relevant sources and tools for research. Here there is no longer a separation between users and creators of archives. The internet is bringing new players into the heritage field as well as innovative ways of ‘preserving’ urban and architectural history and making it public on the web.

How can heritage institutions respond to the urgencies of archiving (and documenting) that these communities bring to the fore? The question is how to move towards a more decentralised, collaborative and community-based approach to collecting; one that involves more participation and more space for ‘other’ or community knowledge. The archival collection itself is no longer the (only) starting point, but what stakeholders and interested parties themselves consider important to preserve and share. In short, different ways of engaging with users, stakeholders, the public and communities. In short, we should explore new forms of collaboration between the institution and these stakeholders and be open to different interpretations and forms of use

If we are to prepare for the future, we need to rethink the existing method of collecting. It is no longer ‘the all-powerful institution’ that determines what is important to label as heritage. An increasing number of alternative participatory approaches to archives are being developed nationally and internationally, with new forms of collaboration between institutional and private archive creators, managers and users. These show a shift from the managing institution as an authority to a facilitator (and co-producer) working closely with communities and bottom-up initiatives. Both post-custodial and participatory methods of collecting (see below) suggest a shift from defining the manager as an authority operating within an institutional context to a facilitator working closely with communities, groups and individuals. Several examples of architectural and design heritage were presented at the Disclosing Architecture and Jaap Bakema Study Centre) conferences, where the idea of ​​a ‘post-custodial’ or ‘post-preservation’ approach to heritage emerged alongside concepts such as co-creation and co-evaluation.

Through the research project Collecting Otherwise, the Nieuwe Instituut has also experimented with methods of collecting and making heritage ‘otherwise’, and has explored new forms of collaboration with communities from the former colonies and with women to shape new, shared archival practices.

Digital technology enables this different division of roles and offers an exciting opportunity for participatory and post-custodial approaches that combine the curatorial authority of the institution with the knowledge and urgencies of the communities represented. An important prerequisite is that archives understand their audiences and users, and know exactly who their stakeholders are.

Several architectural institutions are experimenting with a working method that decouples the ownership and (physical) acquisition of archives from their management and publication. One example is the way the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has managed the archive of the architect Mustafa in Sudan. Instead of acquiring the drawings and other archival material, the custodians of the Mustafa Archive in Khartoum retained ownership of the archives, while the CCA provided the expertise (and financial support) to digitise and publish the archives (making them accessible through the globally accessible CCA database) for future research. It’s a shift from collecting to connecting.

There is every reason to involve the architecture and design communities more closely in collecting. In recent years, we have witnessed a growing (revival of) interest in the architectural archive, not only among historians and academics, but especially among contemporary architects, designers and makers.

It was also the professional group of architects themselves who, 100 years ago, formed the basis of today’s National Collection. Nieuwe Instituut owes its core collection to the civic initiative by a group of private architects who began collecting archives as part of their struggle for the emancipation of architecture as a cultural discipline. The collection has since grown into an internationally renowned research collection, with much attention paid to the (art) historical, scientific and educational significance of the archives. In recent years, as mentioned above, there has been an increasing use of and interest in the collection by architects, designers and makers.

Collection policy can be more responsive to these ‘new’ uses and the renewed attention of architects, makers and designers. In this way, the collection will increasingly be used to address contemporary social issues and themes such as decolonisation, well-being, the environment, sustainability, the housing programme, equality and social justice. It shows how heritage can be used as a source of inspiration and as an expression of efforts to build a better world. It is recommended that the collection policy strengthens the role of the archive as a source of inspiration for the future of spatial design and a good living environment for all, in cooperation with interested parties and stakeholders.

You also see that in the digital age, the copy-paste, re-use and re-mix of existing material has become the core of cultural production. For many contemporary architects and designers, copy-paste is one of their design strategies. Material and data from the archive are reused or recombined in new projects. The digital archive erases the distinction between ‘archive’ and ‘work in progress’.

Is the importance of creative reuse influencing the future of collecting? The reuse of open, digital collections in museums and archives leads to new stories and new designs in potentially surprising, innovative ways. Reuse also implies a different kind of management, where permission is needed from the creators of archives to make them available via linked open data. (Note: as part of this initiative, the Nieuwe Instituut is also working on an open data policy that will allow sharing and editing by others).

The digitisation of design practice influences the composition of archives and requires a different approach to collecting and a different framework for evaluation. Concepts that have traditionally defined architectural heritage, or that have traditionally formed the basis of archiving and heritage management, such as authorship, authenticity, the artefact and the ethics of preservation, are in fact no longer applicable to digital heritage.

The rapid and iterative nature of digital design translates directly into the fragmented and layered nature of born-digital architectural archives. The ease with which files can be replicated and modified, and the interdependencies between files and software, make individual digital objects extremely difficult to evaluate.

“As newer developments such as BIM and cloud computing create even more challenges for archival practice, learning from each other remains an important task. This is particularly true of the exchange between makers and custodians. The development of a common language between archivists/conservators and architects is essential to continue collecting and preserving more contemporary archival documents in the near future.” (Ania Molenda: Understanding Digital Architecture )

The dynamic nature, increasing complexity and sheer volume of data in emerging digital architectural archives require a different approach to conservation and collection as heritage.