Museological Institutions and the Construction Of
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The NAi Effect: Museological Institutions and the Construction of Architectural Discourse A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture by Sergio Miguel Figueiredo 2014 © Copyright by Sergio Miguel Figueiredo 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The NAi Effect: Museological Institutions and the Construction of Architectural Discourse by Sergio Miguel Figueiredo Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Dana Cuff, Chair While historically, institutions shaping architectural discourse have been primarily academic, recently, architecture museums and institutes have emerged as increasingly influential platforms in furthering architectural debate. As nexus of architectural knowledge, these institutions have become particularly operative in contemporary society, primarily by involving a wide audience. By not only engaging the concerns of a broad audience, but allowing a broad audience to engage with the stakes, processes and concerns of architecture, architecture museums have effectively democratized the architectural discipline, inevitably altering architecture’s perception, blurring its boundaries and exploring new territories for presentation, reflection, and discussion. This dissertation attempts to precisely elucidate the question of how architecture museums have continued to impact the production and consumption of architecture, particularly as primary ii interfaces between the interiority and exteriority of the discipline. It is thus argued that architecture museums occupy a unique position within the discipline (and among their institutional counterparts), as they both are defined and define architecture’s present perception. Given their fundamental connection, by interrogating the architecture museum, an original understanding of the architectural discipline was produced. Founded on the premise of architecture’s social and political engagement with society, the Netherlands Architecture Institute (Nederlands Architectuurinstituut, or NAi) became paradigmatic of this condition. With a modern organization and a systematic engagement with different audiences, in less than twenty‐five years the Rotterdam institute emerged as a forceful voice in the globalized discussion of architecture, while also influencing the development of a remarkable architecture culture in the Netherlands. Therefore, by analyzing the conceptual and institutional dimensions of the NAi grounded on a thorough historical examination, this doctoral research advances not only the existing scholarship on the institute (and on architecture museums), but also produces a novel insight into the contemporary moment of the discipline through the under‐ analyzed perspective of architectural museological institutions. iii The dissertation of Sergio Miguel Figueiredo is approved. Sylvia Lavin Wim de Wit Dana Cuff, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv For Siska v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ........................................................................................................................ ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ACRONYMS FOR ARCHIVES ...................................................................................................................... xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................................................. xv VITA ................................................................................................................................................................................... xvii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 1. ARCHITECTURE IN THE GALLERY: THE MUSEUM AND THE ARCHIVE ............................................. 7 The Order of the Archive ....................................................................................................................................... 15 A Note on the Historiography of the Architecture Museum ................................................................... 18 Critical Depth of Private Collections ................................................................................................................. 22 Collecting Architectural Ideas ......................................................................................................................... 23 The Antiquarian Methods ................................................................................................................................. 31 Architectural Narratives ................................................................................................................................... 38 From Private Collections to Critical Depth ................................................................................................ 41 Encyclopedic Breadth of Enlightenment Museums .................................................................................... 44 The Encyclopedic Public Museum ................................................................................................................. 45 Specialization and Classification of the Architectural Archive ......................................................... 48 Public Accessibility .............................................................................................................................................. 60 vi The Implosion of Meaning in the Architectural Archive ...................................................................... 63 The Emergence of a Third Way ........................................................................................................................... 75 A Dialectical Relationship ................................................................................................................................. 76 Architecture Museum without Walls ........................................................................................................... 83 2. THE CONSTRUCTION OF DISCOURSE: SOCIETIES OF ARCHITECTURE (1818‐1921) ................ 87 Previous Scholarship and other Resources .................................................................................................... 89 Maastschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst ............................................................................................. 92 Foundation and Precedents ............................................................................................................................. 93 Membership ........................................................................................................................................................... 98 Objectives and Activities ................................................................................................................................ 101 1880 Amendment ............................................................................................................................................. 123 The New Communal Building ...................................................................................................................... 130 Beyond the Maatschappij.................................................................................................................................... 145 Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia ....................................................................................................... 145 Jan Leliman and his son Willem Leliman ................................................................................................ 158 A Tale of Two Museums ...................................................................................................................................... 177 3. MUSEUM OR INSTITUTE: FROM PROJECTIVE TO REFLECTIVE AND BACK AGAIN (1912‐ 1983) ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 182 Reflective Museum, Projective Institute ....................................................................................................... 187 After Willem Leliman ........................................................................................................................................... 192 The Committees of the Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia ........................................................ 193 vii The Institute that Never Was ....................................................................................................................... 204 The 1918 Commission for a State Architecture Museum ................................................................. 210 The 1923 Jubilee Architectural Exhibition ............................................................................................. 219 An Architecture Museum in the Zuiderkerk ........................................................................................... 224 An Architecture Museum in the Rijksprentenkabinet ........................................................................ 227 Institutionalizing an Architectural