Giedion and explorations: Confluences of space and media in Toronto school theorization

Abstract

This chapter examines the influence of the Swiss art historian and architectural critic Sigfried Giedion on the collaborative work that developed during the Culture and Communications Seminar (1953-1955) and the publication of the Explorations journal (1953-1959) at the University of Toronto. Chaired by Marshall McLuhan, the graduate seminar was co-directed by cultural anthropologist Edmund Carpenter along with British urban planner Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, political scientist Thomas Easterbrook and psychologist D. Carleton Williams. They sought to develop interdisciplinary methodologies using a "field" approach to discern the new grammars and environments created by electronic communications technologies. Building on Harold Innis’s thesis of the bias of communication, the group turned to the work of Giedion, whose ideas were represented in seminar discussions by Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, who served as translator, editor and arguably coauthor of many of his writings over a period of 20 years. Under the influence of Giedion’s work, a methodology grew out of the seminar that viewed the environment as an active rather than a passive space. The seminar and journal thus form an important starting point for defining the research agenda of the Toronto School and represent an important turn towards interdisciplinary research in Canada. Together, the seminar group helped initiate a Canadian tradition of studying culture, communication, and media. This chapter is based on a close examination of Giedion’s works and original archival research into the group’s papers.