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ARCHITECTURAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

AHRA Annual Conference 2005
School of the Built Environment
University of Nottingham
November 18-19, 2005

This two day international event is the second annual conference of the
Architectural Humanities Research Association, (AHRA). Following the
successful inaugural event at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL in
November 2004, (entitled Critical Architecture), this year's conference is
held in association with the Nottingham-based Image Studies Network
supported by the Humanities Research Centre at the University of
Nottingham. The conference theme has been set by Professor Marco Frascari
of Carleton University, Ottawa, also a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at
the University of Nottingham in 2005-06.

MODELS & DRAWINGS: THE INVISIBLE NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE

The conference will address the various relationships between drawings and
buildings under four key themes: The tendency of architectural
representations to become 'models' for imitation; the claim of new imaging
technologies to make visible the previously unseen; the cognitive spatial
implications of traditional imaging practices relative to CAD; the
critical potential of the architectural image.

Invited keynote speakers include: Prof Marco Frascari (Carleton
University); Prof Don Ihde (SUNY Stony Brook); Prof Alberto Perez-Gomez
(McGill University); Prof. Agostino De Rosa (lUAV) - [all confirmed]; Dr
Jane Rendell (The Bartlett, UCL); Prof Judith Mottram (Nottingham Trent
University).

Four separate strands will address the following areas of discussion:

Models versus Drawings:
The architect's drawings have become "models" and generate "models" to be
preserved in museums, magazines and archives. To challenge this idle
condition it is necessary to question the imagination of construction and
the construction of imagination and how these processes a/effect the
envisioning of architecture in absentia.

Interdisciplinary Imaging:
Architecture shares much common ground with related practices of image-
making. In engineering, manufacturing, medicine and neuroscience new
technologies are being employed to image previously obscure and invisible
processes. In the expanding field of visual culture traditional
hermeneutic practices are rapidly adapting to the alternative modes of
engagement required by these new 'ways of seeing'. In the hands of the
architect, how might these tools of diagnosis become tools of prognosis?

Real and Virtual - The Hand and the Eye:
Cognitive science suggests a link between the embodied act of drawing and
the perceptual experience of space. What happens during problem solving,
remembering, perceiving, and other psychological processes in the
transition from pencils and pens to keyboards and mice - from the
tangibility and resistance of traditional media to the acquiescence and
intangibility of digital data and screens?

The Critical Dimension of Architectural Drawing:
In challenging the idle codification and canonization associated with
traditional architectural drawing, this panel will address the ways in
which drawings and other media (such as texts and non-representational
models) can be used as critical design tools to investigate and/or to
express the role and performance of architectural mediation itself. It
develops the Criticism by Design theme from the 2004 Critical Architecture
UCL conference, where the term design is used to mean both the drawing of
lines and the drawing forth of ideas.

Please send a 500 word abstract plus 250 word biography - both included in
the body of the email (not as attachments) - to
[log in to unmask] by 5 September 2005. Please indicate for
which strand you wish your paper to be considered. Abstracts will be
refereed by two academics. You will be notified as to whether your paper
has been accepted by 19 September 2005. A selection of papers from the
conference will be published in ARQ (Architectural Research Quarterly) in
2006.

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A new organisation has recently been establshed to support research in the
areas of architectural history, theory, culture, design and urbanism - The
Architectural Humanities Research Association.

A new website contains details of AHRA events and activities including
this year's annual conference. The site can be found
at:

www.ahra-architecture.org.uk

We are now aiming to recruit a wider membership of researchers in this
area and to canvas a broader range of views on how the organisation might
develop in the future. We hope that you will be interested to visit the
website and to register as a member to receive details of future AHRA
activities. New members will also receive a copy of a comprehensive
database of researchers in architectural humanities based at Universities
in the UK. As part of our mission to influence national research policy
developments, we are currently gathering views on the assessment criteria
and working methods of the forthcoming Research Assessment Exercise. If
you would like to contribute to this debate please visit the 'RAE 2008'
section of the website and send us your comments and suggestions by 1st
September.


Thank you in advance for your help and support,
Jonathan Hale