The Cca As Museum of Architecture
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Document generated on 09/29/2021 12:04 a.m. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review The cca as Museum of Architecture Helen Searing Études sur l’architecture et son environnement Article abstract Studies on Architecture and its Environment Conçu pour répondre à des besoins variés, quoique complémentaires et Volume 16, Number 2, 1989 intimement liés, et destiné aussi bien au grand public qu’aux chercheurs, universitaires, professionnels ainsi qu’aux personnes qui, de par leur rôle URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1073150ar politique ou économique, ont la responsabilité de décisions relatives à DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1073150ar l’architecture et à l’urbanisme, le Centre Canadien d’Architecture est une institution à vocation complexe. Bien que le but du présent texte est d’analyser le en tant que musée, l’existence même de l’établissement à ce titre est See table of contents cca indissociable de ses autres fonctions—bibliothèque, réserve d’archives, centre d’étude et de conférences, lieu propice à l’enseignement et aux discussions. Une attention toute particulière est accordée à l’ensemble architectural qui Publisher(s) abrite le Centre, soit la maison historique Shaughnessy et le nouvel édifice conçu par Peter Rose. Le texte fait également état du rapport entre l’oeuvre de UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des Rose et les progrès récents en matière d’architecture muséale, pour mieux universités du Canada) dégager l’influence de certains précurseurs, notamment de Louis I. Kahn. Les deux expositions inaugurales et leur installation y sont également examinées ISSN et discutées. 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Searing, H. (1989). The cca as Museum of Architecture. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 16(2), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.7202/1073150ar Tous droits réservés © UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Association d'art des universités du Canada), 1989 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ The CCA as Muséum of Architecture HELEN SEARING Alice Pratt Brown Prof essor of Art Smith College RÉSUMÉ Conçu pour répondre à des besoins variés, quoique d'étude et de conférences, lieu propice à l’enseignement complémentaires et intimement liés, et destiné aussi et aux discussions. Une attention toute particulière est bien au grand public qu’aux chercheurs, universitaires, accordée à l’ensemble architectural qui abrite le Centre, professionnels ainsi qu’aux personnes qui, de par leur soit la maison historique Shaughnessy et le nouvel édi rôle politique ou économique, ont la responsabilité de fice conçu par Peter Rose. Le texte fait également état décisions relatives à l’architecture et à l’urbanisme, le du rapport entre l’oeuvre de Rose et les progrès récents Centre Canadien d’Architecture est une institution à en matière d’architecture muséale, pour mieux dégager vocation complexe. Bien que le but du présent texte est l’influence de certains précurseurs, notamment de d’analyser le cca en tant que musée, l’existence même Louis I. Kahn. Les deux expositions inaugurales et leur de l’établissement à ce titre est indissociable de ses autres installation y sont également examinées et discutées. fonctions — bibliothèque, réserve d’archives, centre The Canadian Centre for Architecture is a com- ARCHITECTURE AND THE MUSEUM plex institution (Fig. 220). Conceived to serve The diversity and didacticism of the cca could well many diverse if complementary and interlocking be encompassed by the word “muséum” if that rôles, the cca is directed to various audiences—the word were given its pre-nineteenth-century rnean- the lay public, scholars, practitioners, and those ing. The term mouseion—realm of the Muses — economically and politically empowered to make was applied in ancient Greece to places where decisions about architecture and ciliés. In this philosophers gathered to debate, and in Hellenis- essay it is the cca as a “muséum” that I wish to tic times designated the entire cultural precinct at consider, although its existence and performance Alexandria, which included a library and collec as such are inextricably dépendent on ils other tions of art objects, scientific instruments, and nat functions as archives and library, conférence and ural history spécimens.2 After the introduction of study centre, publisher, stimulator of debate, and printed books, the term sometimes appeared in school.1 the title of published repositories of knowledge,3 while continuing to connote a place containing a 1 The brilliaritly conceived garden that complétés the cca, designed by Mclvin Charney, and unfinished at this writ- collection. ing, lies outside the domain of this essay. Essential reading for ail of these topics is Larry Richards, ed., Canadian Centre 2 Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types (Princeton, for Architecture: Building and Gardens (Montréal, 1989), 1976), 111, and Alma S. Wittlin, Muséums: In Search of a catalogue to one of the two inaugural exhibitions. Indeed it Usable Future (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 221. is difficult to add new information or insights to those 3 According to Wittlin, Muséums, 221-23, “a book entitled expressed by the authors contributing to this volume. I Muséum was a compilation that supposedly containcd a hâve read it very cursorily before advancing rny own views, représentative sélection of information on a single subject, but even skimming the volume, I am aware that. the superb if not ail available data”; she cites représentative exam essay, “Critical Classicism and the Restoration of Architec ples. In the context of this essay, it is pertinent to note that tural Consciousness” by Larry Richards, is so thorough and French “revolutionary” architect Claude-Nicholas Ledoux insightful that it leaves subséquent commentators little to (1736-1806) used the term in a prospectus announcing the add about the genesis of the design and its sources in local publication of engravings of his oeuvre, which he described architecture as well as its relation to the work of key as an “Encyclopedia or Architectural muséum” (Anthony twentieth-century architects. Vidler, The Writingofthe Walls: Architectural Theory in the Laie searing / The cca as Muséum of Architecture 181 During the late eighteenth century, the public French Révolution, created in the convent of the muséum emerged as an indispensable national Petits-Augustins his Musée des monuments français, institution, and the word acquired its modern réf but the architectural fragments that he placed on érencé to a distinct building type, while retaining view constituted only a small part of the total col the general meaning of a place, a collection, and lection.8 One could argue that the rooms that Sir an activity directed towards the acquisition and John Soane (1753-1837) arranged in his house at dissémination of learning. The term would con Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the display of models, tinue to embrace “a range of concepts, some real, drawings, and architectural fragments, func- some imaginary, from the quasi-acadernic gather- tioned as an architectural muséum,9 and that the ing common in the 1780s, to grand schemes muséums of crafts and the industrial arts founded bringing together ail the sciences and the arts in a in the second half of the nineteenth century, such single Temple of Knowledge.”4 Yet by the 1770s, as the Victoria and Albert Muséum in London and the word “muséum” more specifically denoted a the various Kunstgewerbe muséums in Germany distinct place for the préservation and display of and Austria, performed a similar rôle. Architec artifacts.5 A simultaneous development was that tural drawings and, in some cases, models hâve the contents deposited in the muséum became been displayed in academie settings since the sev- more specialized, while the container became enteenth century, and many art muséums, histori- more codifîed in its design.6 cal societies, and libraries hâve made it a policy to The idea for forming muséums of “architec collect architectural drawings and rare books, and ture” has been in currency at least since the late to mount exhibitions on the architecture of a par- eighteenth century as well,7 but the realization of ticular time or place, or by a particular individual this idea, in any systematic manner, is a relatively or firm. recent phenomenon. As is well known, Alexandre Displays of architecture in the form of draw Lenoir (1762-1839), in the aftermath of the ings, models, and, in some cases, full-scale mock- ups also appeared at the international expositions that occurred with such frequency after the mid- Enlightenmenl [Princeton, 1987], 166). This ties in with the nineteenth century. Outdoor architectural musé point made by Hélène Lipstadt in her essay, “Architectural Publications, Compétitions, and Exhibitions,” in the ums, such as Skansen, hâve been around for some catalogue to the second of the cca’s inaugural exhibitions, time too.10 But the muséum of architecture as an Architecture and Its Image, ed. Eve Blau and Edward Kauf man (Montréal, 1989), 1 10, that “one can classify publish- 8 Lenoir did attempt to provide an appropriate architectural ing houses, galleries, muséums, and, to a certain extent, setting for the remnants of the different epochs, creating, compétitions as the formai and informai institutions of for example, a fictive Gothic groin-vaulted room. The not architecture.” inconsiderable literature on Lenoir is summarized in Vid 4 Vidler, Writing of the Walls, 165.