What the Files Reveal: Making Everyday Architecture Talk

Author: Benedikt Boucsein
Year: 2021 (Dimensions. Journal of Architectural Knowledge)
Source type: article
Raw file: raw/articles/boucsein-2021-what-the-files-reveal.md

Summary

Boucsein argues that building-file archives can make everyday architecture "speak" in ways that the physical buildings — and modernist historiography — cannot. Drawing on his research on West German post-war reconstruction's "Grey Architecture," he proposes that everyday architecture is best understood not as a type but as a mode (a modus operandi shaped by external conditions), and that the building files function as a research anchor — often more important than the buildings themselves. The designer's disciplinary view is decisive in reading these files.

Key Claims

• Buildings as hybrid, dynamic entities: following Albena Yaneva (and Latour/Yaneva), a building is "not a coherent and self-contained entity" but "a dynamic network," existing equally in plans, renderings, and photographs. Hence archival material can be as important as — or more important than — the built form.
• Grey Architecture as everyday architecture: the dominant, visually omnipresent everyday architecture of Germany's post-war reconstruction (ca. 1945–1965), long ignored as a "non-architectural side product" of the greatest collective building effort of the 20th century.
• Everyday architecture as a mode, not a type: Grey Architecture is a mode (from modus operandi) reflecting external modal conditions — technology, economy, society, planning, legislation. Crucially: "architecture is not primarily the product of the architect's will, but rather strongly depends on external circumstances" (cf. Jeremy Till: architecture "is defined by its very contingency"). High architecture attempts to overcome/conceal modal conditions; everyday architecture "works with the conditions in an affirmative manner, translating them directly into architecture."
• The archive as anchor: the building files (plans, correspondence between architects and authorities, decrees) let the researcher reconstruct design decisions, the influence of clients and authorities, and the pressure of external circumstances. They revealed, e.g., the forgotten architect Hans Engels who built much of Essen's main shopping street.
• Designer's view: the architect-researcher's trained perspective is decisive in making archival material productive — "students should proactively work in the archive according to their training as designers."
• Preservation implication: for everyday architecture, preserving typological aspects, ownership, and production methods may matter more than preserving the "original" building, which is continually modified.

Connections

Concepts: Modal Architecture · Everyday Architecture · Flat Ontology · Authorship
Authors: Benedikt Boucsein
Debates: Genius vs. Bureaucracy
Related source notes: The 'Bread & Butter' of Architecture

Direct Quotes

"[A]rchitecture is [...] shaped more by external conditions than by the internal processes of the architect. Architecture is defined by its very contingency, by its very uncertainty in the face of these outside forces." (Jeremy Till, as quoted)

"[T]he building files were more important for research than the actual buildings." (Boucsein, on his Grey Architecture studies)

"[E]veryday architecture [...] does not work against the strong modal conditions it is subjected to ... It works with the conditions in an affirmative manner, translating them directly into architecture."

"[T]he notion of mode [...] relates to the time frame as well as to the multiple thematic connections that everyday architecture has to the economic, legal, technological, and societal influences around it."

Open Questions

• If everyday architecture is a "mode," how does the category relate to the star-architecture "object" (Bismarck) and to aesthetics-driven historiography?
• Does the designer's privileged archive-access reproduce the professional lens the flat-ontology project wants to dismantle, or is it the condition of possibility for hearing everyday architecture?