Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural Legacy

Abstract

"Following the daily routines of collecting and record keeping at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Albena Yaneva tells the story of how the nature of architectural archives reflects the nature of design as a collective endeavor in which archivists, librarians, editors, curators, digital humanists, and conservators all play a role. She also makes an argument about the importance of architectural archive-making as an index of the cultural position of design in contemporary societies"-- Introduction: The Secret Life of Architectural Objects -- Archive Fevers -- Architecture and the "Fever" of Archiving -- A Morning in the Vaults -- Opening the Crates -- Fear of Time, Fear of Insects -- The Plot of Archiving -- The Life of an Old Floppy Disk -- Conclusion: Collections as Sites of Epistemological Anxiety.