In July 1798, General Bonaparte invaded Egypt with an army of soldiers, engineers and scholars. One month later, Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Situated between Europe and India, Egypt now became the Middle East for European empires. Since then, images of Egyptian landscapes and monuments have circulated as [...]

At the EAA annual conference, Even Smith Wergeland and Tom Davies are presenting the paperDigging towards the future: the changing role of archaeology in urban planning.

Piranesi and the Modern Age takes as a point of departure the prints of the Italian Etcher, architect and designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78). The exhibition explores the idea that piranesi not merely influenced the modern age – in film,  photography, art and architecture – but that the idea of the modern as such partly [...]

Since the Napoleonic occupation of the country in 1798, images of Egypt have played continuously on the European mind. A geopolitical hotspot, Egypt was central in 19th and 20th century reconceptualisations of time and speed, infrastructure and technology, aesthetics and movement, all negotiated through circulating imagery. This exhibition traces the history of moving images and [...]

The book Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe, written by Victor Plahte Tschudi and published by Cambridge University Press, was launched at the residence of the Consul General in New York on October 13. The book was presented by Prof. Christopher Wood, New York University, and Prof. Victor Plahte Tschudi, AHO. The presentation [...]

Natalie Hope O’Donnell defended her PhD thesis ”Space as curatorial practice: the exhibition as a spatial construct. ‘Ny kunst i tusen år’ (1970), ‘Vår Verden av Ting – Objekter’ (1970) and ‘Norsk Middelalderkunst’ (1972) at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter.”  The members of the adjudication committee were Professor Peter Lang, Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm; Senior Lecturer Annika Öhrner, Södertörn University, Stockholm; and [...]

The Norwegian Renaissance Society is pleased to announce the three-day conference Renaissance Prototypes, Tensions of Past and Present in Early Modern Europe. ​Call for papers The conference Renaissance Prototypes will focus on that particular early modern notion of the past as composed of predictions of the future. “Prototype” was a term coined in the Renaissance [...]

Tina Di Carlo, PhD candidate in the OCCAS research project Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture, defended her dissertation The Construction of an Exhibition within Architecture Culture: Deconstructivist Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art, 1988. The members of the adjudication committee were professor Philip Ursprung, ETH, Zürich, associate professor Patricia Morton, University of California, Riverside, and [...]

‘Hosting Experimental Preservation at the V&A’ is a roundtable event that coincides with the exhibition ‘All of This Belongs To You’ that features the work of artist and preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos. This roundtable is co-organised by the Victoria & Albert Museum and Jorge Otero-Pailos, and brings together leading voices in this emerging field, and new [...]

Mari Lending, professor of history of theory at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and co-founder of OCCAS, gave a key note presentation, titled ‘Fabrics of Reality in Fiction’, at the Reading Architecture symposium. The event was organised by the History and Theory Program, School of Architecture, McGill University and hosted at the Benaki Museum in Athens, [...]

Modelling Time. The Permanent Collection 1925-2014 won the prize for the most beautiful non-fiction book of the year by the Norwegian graphics organization Grafill. The book is edited by Mari Lending and Mari Hvattum in conjunction with the AHO master studio “Architecture on Display”. Modelling Time is designed by Anders Hofgaard, NODE Berlin/Oslo, and published [...]

The book Hva er arkitektur [What is Architecture], written by Mari Hvattum as part of Universitetsforlaget’s “what is” series, was launched on Wednesday 22 April 2015 at 3 pm in the AHO cantina. Written as an accessible introduction to architecture as a discipline and a phenomenon, the book addresses students, practitioners, and the general public. [...]

The exhibition “A Creation of Our Time. The Debate over the Norwegian Parliament Building 1835-1860″ was officially opened at AHO on Tuesday December 16 by the President of the Norwegian Parliament, Olemic Thommessen. The exhibition shows relief models of six of the most contested projects for the Norwegian Parliament building, made between 1856 and 1860. In addition, [...]

The Printed and the Built project held its first international symposium in Oslo, October 23–25, 2014. In addition to the local project team, the scholars invited were Caroline van Eck from University of Leiden, Adrian Forty from University College London, Richard Wittman from University of California, Santa Barbara, and Wallis Miller from University of Kentucky.   [...]

Installation par of the Monditalia exhibition at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia,“a scan across the Italian territory from South to North, and more extensively from Africa to the Alps and Europe.” “Effimero: Or the Postmodern Italian Condition” tells the story of the series of ephemeral works of architecture constructed in [...]

Heinrich Ernst Schirmer (1814–1887) was one of the most significant architects of 19th century Norway. He designed churches, prisons, schools, stations, hospitals and houses all over the country, including Norway’s first penitentiary, the first mental hospital, and the first public museum; The National Gallery in Oslo. The poet J.S. Welhaven described Schirmer as “our best [...]

The roundtable Experimental Preservation will bring leading voices of this emerging field into conversation to critically examine its defining aesthetics, strategies and ambitions. The roundtable is co-organized and will be moderated by Thordis Arrhenius, Erik Langdalen and Jorge Otero-Pailos. Presentations by: Andreas Angeladakis, Architect, Athens Lucia Allais, Princeton University Svetlana Boym, Harvard University Reinhard Kropf, Helen & [...]

To what extend is preservation a proactive process, one that is as much concerned with the past as with the design of contemporary politics and identities? Over three lectures, the Preservation Design seminar explores issues of preservation, authenticity, and the document in the built environment. In a lecture titled The Authentic, Thordis Arrhenius explores the consequences of the notion [...]

Stepping down as Dean of GSAPP, Columbia University, Mark Wigley invited a group of scholars to explore the responsibility and opportunity for architectural theory. OCCAS scholar Mari Lending presented, together with Lucia Allais, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Cousins, Arindam Dutta, Keller Easterling, John Harwood, Catherine Ingraham, Mark Jarzombek, Spyros Papapetros, Beatriz Preciado, Felicity Scott, Pelin Tan, [...]

The symposium gathers a group of outstanding practitioners from Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, USA, Sweden and Norway to discuss the emergence of experimental preservation within architecture and art, having a special focus on the reuse of post-war structures. The event is an opportunity to meet leading figures within this burgeoning field, and to exchange ideas, [...]

Ninety years after Gunnar Asplund’s Italian journey, Nordic and Italian scholars gather in Rome to explore exchanges between Nordic and Mediterranean architectural cultures. Carnets, sketches, drawings, photographs, reports, letters and journals are studied to investigate the effects of architects’ travels between the North and the South across centuries. The symposium takes place at the Accademia [...]

OCCAS scholar Thordis Arrhenius  gives a  keynote lecture at the conference Documentary Remains at GSAPP, Columbia University, November 14th 2013. Arranged by Mark Wasuita, the conference looks at 20th century exhibitions and exhibition research. Using archives, records, documents and remains as its points of departure, the conference addresses the apparent imbalance between the centrality claimed for exhibitions in contemporary scholarship and the [...]

  Arkitekturdepoter: Piranesistikk og stavkirkeportaler, with essays by students from the OCCAS elective courses ”Architectural Fantasies: Piranesi &Co” and ”The Art of Collecting Architecture” will be launched at AHO this week. Victor Plahte Tschudi and Mari Lending led the seminars and edited and introduced the book. Carolina Santos Coelho, Thomas Johannessen, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen, Christiana Thorsen [...]

In September 1931, a grand display of contemporary Norwegian architecture was shown in the House of Artists in Oslo. The recently inaugurated Kunsthalle was filled to the brim by scale models, photographs, drawings, and installations. At the core of the exhibition was the “Permanent Collection” of scale models and photography, founded by Norwegian architects in [...]

For the ForArt lecture 2013, ForArt in collaboration with OCCAS, invited Mark Wigley, Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, to explore architecture’s nervous encounter with liquids—the material flows in pipes and the immaterial flows of radio waves. The lecture “Pipeless Dreams” will be held at Litteraturhuset Friday at 6 pm, [...]

The ambition to exhibit architecture always entails a paradox: how to exhibit something so large and complex as a building or a city or how to represent something as elusive as an architectural experience that unfolds in space and time? The Yale Symposium Exhibiting Architecture: A Paradox? invited OCCAS scholars Mari Lending, Léa-Cathrine Szacka, and [...]

The seminar “Architecture and Design Museums in Germany Today” takes OCCAS outside of Scandinavia to discuss continuity and change in museums. Guest lecturers Andres Lepik, Director of the Architecture Museum in Munich, and Esther Cleven, head curator of Design at the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar are both recent apointees to their posts. Their presentations focus the discussion on [...]

Even Smith Wergeland defended the thesis titled  From Utopia to Reality – the Motorway as a Work of Art on 22 March 2013. It was approved by the following adjudication committee: Professor David Pinder, Roskilde University, professor Siri Skjold Lexau, University of Bergen, and associate professor Jonny Aspen, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.    [...]

Pax Forlag and OCCAS invite to an open book launch and mini-seminar on the new anthology Vor Tids Fordringer. Norske arkitekturdebatter 1818–1919 [The Demands of our Time. Norwegian debates on architecture 1818–1919], edited by OCCAS-scholars Mari Lending and Mari Hvattum. The launch is held in Old Aker Church, Oslo, February 4 2013 at 1700. Speakers include Rune Slagstad, Håkon Gundersen, Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland, and Helge Jordheim. Welcome!

KTH School of Architecture is delighted to host the launch of the third issue of the Nordic Journal of Architecture, edited by Mari Lending, AHO and guest edited by Tim Anstey and Catharina Gabrielsson, KTH School of Architecture, on the theme “Alteration”. The launch will take place at the School of Architecture Library, Östermalmsg 26, Stockholm, [...]

The Routes project arranged an ambulatory seminar in the Stourhead gardens in Wiltshire, UK. Finola O’Kane from UCD Dublin, Stephen Daniels from the University of Nottingham, Katja Grillner from KTH Stockholm, and Antoine Picon from GSD Harvard joined the Routes team for inspiring discussions on the relationship between routes, landscapes, technology and architecture in the [...]

OCCAS hosted the symposium “Heritage Values in Growing Cities” at AHO. Organized by Thordis Arrhenius and Lothar Diem in collaboration with Oslo municipality’s heritage management office, the event was conceived as part of officially celebrating the centenary for Norway’s Directorate for Cultural Heritage. The symposium addressed questions on current practice in heritage management in relation [...]

Are national histories of architecture any longer relevant, and what is a “Norwegian” history of architecture, anyway? Given the plans to write a new history of Norwegian architecture, these are topical questions. Invited scholars and PhD students from several universities presented position statements and papers on this one day seminar on the historiography of Norwegian [...]

Resonating with chief curator David Chipperfield’s theme “Common Ground” for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012, the School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, is organizing the panel “Shifting Ground” in the biennale’s special program for universities. Léa-Catherine Szacka, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pippo Chirra, MAXXI Architettura, Rome; Mari Lending, Oslo School of Architecture and Design; [...]

OCCAS scholar Anders V. Munch launches his new book Fra Bayreuth til Bauhus. Gesamtkunstwerk’et og de moderne kunstformer, Aarhus University Press (2012).  Over more than 600 pages, Munch’s study is a veritable tour de force, following the concept of the Geamtkunstwerk from Richard Wagner’s seminal texts and beyond modernism, casting new light on the history and historicity [...]

OCCAS scholars Thordis Arrhenius, Jorge Oterio- Pailos and Lothar Diem will participate in the Inaugural Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies on the Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies. The Association of Critical Heritage Studies, to be launched at this conference, will establish in association with International Journal of Heritage Studies (IJHS) an extensive network [...]

  On Thursday May 16th the Norwegian Research Council announced that OCCAS has entered the final application round for becoming a Center of Excellence.  Of the 139 original applicants, 29 center proposals have entered the final round of the competition for 5+5 years extensive funding. OCCAS is applying with the project “Nordic Architectural Culture, 1850–2050” [...]

The second issue of Nordic Journal of Architecture will be launched at the EAHN conference in Brussels. Entitled “Nonumentality”, the special section is guest edited by Mari Hvattum, and revisits the architectural culture of post war Scandinavia.

Professor Mari Lending presents the keynote lecture “On Architectural History in the Architectural Studio.” The conference, arranged by professors Claes Caldenby and Fredrik Nilsson, Chalmers, gathered architects, scholars and conservationist to discuss the role of architectural history in contemporary practice.

This is the second OCCAS seminar on the future of the government quarter after the 22 July bombing. Randall Mason, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania will speak from the perspective of values-centered conservation. Mattias Ekman will comment on the ongoing debate about demolition or restoration. Christian Ebbesen will introduce value assessment in relation to the work done by the ministry of government administration (FAD).

Organized by Wallis Miller, Mari Lending, and Erik Langdalen and The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo this one day seminar will consider issues surrounding the installation of a new permanent exhibition of Norwegian architecture. This enterprise poses interesting dilemmas, as the exhibition has to deal with the troubling concept of a national canon, the selection of emblematic works and the overall curating of architectural history. The National Museum will plan the exhibition in collaboration with OCCAS.

Scholars from Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture gathered in Rome at the Norwegian Institute for a seminar: On Scale. The participants took scale to task to reconsider its relevance within the historical and contemporary practices of exhibiting architecture, amongst the city whose history perhaps best problematizes the issue. The program, which considered issues of monumentality and preservation, models and [...]