Christoph Engel

If metadata are understood as objects, just like their processes, their infrastructures and their consequences, then techniques for their virtual indexing can be learnt from the human-made information from collected objects. Not only which parameters have to be entered into which databases and how, but above all which metadata promote and prevent which research focuses; which technique of knowledge transfer into catalogues and knowledge systems creates blind spots or leads to erosion and omissions.
 

Bernd Seeland

Die Rolle künstlicher Intelligenz in der Verwaltung, Erzeugung und Verarbeitung von Daten ist in einer modernen digitalen Informationsgesellschaft und -wirtschaft von grundlegender Bedeutung. Archive als Orte der Grundlagen gesellschaftlicher Prozesse bieten den idealen Zugang um eine nachhaltige Wissensgenese und Datenpraxis für die Zukunft zu untersuchen. 

Manuela Gantner

The research project examines the estate of the visionary architect Conrad Roland.
It not only offers insights into the scientific research process, but also the work of archives.
also the work of archives.

Joint project of the saai and the Wüstenrot Foundation

The aim of the "Egon Eiermann Digital" project is the systematic digitization of archival sources from Egon Eiermann's work archive. The total volume of the collection amounts to over 30,000 archival items.

Drawing on materials from the archives of Carlfried Mutschler and Frei Otto that are for the most part unpublished, the book presents the history for the first time of the experimental temporary multipurpose hall built by the two architects in 1975 for the Federal Horticultural Show in Mannheim.

To mark the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Architecture, the so-called Prizker Prize, to Frei Otto, the largest exhibition to date on his oeuvre 'Frei Otto - Thinking in Models' will take place at the ZKM from November 5 to March 12, 2017, a joint project of the Southwest German Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering (saai) of the KIT and the Wüstenrot Foundation, in cooperation with the ZKM, funded by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation.

Although architectural drawing as a medium gained enormous importance as an actual design instrument for the first time in the Gothic period, architectural history research is relatively isolated with regard to this medium. This is the only way to understand why the most recent summary on the subject of medieval architectural drawings merely perpetuates established but untenable clichés with regard to the question of scale and usability for the execution process in general.

Otto Herbert Hajek is undoubtedly one of the leading German artistic personalities of the 20th century. Trained as a sculptor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart from 1947 to 1954, Hajek first attracted widespread attention at the end of the 1950s with his "Raumknoten" and "Raumschichtungen" as well as his large-format bronze sculptures with heavily fissured surfaces. From then on, the exploration of space became his major theme, which would accompany him throughout his life.

This project is the first edition of the written work of the architecture teacher Friedrich Weinbrenner (1766-1826) and thus provides an important and complete theoretical position for research.

Based on the estate of Egon Eiermann, the protagonist of German post-war modernism, "objects of knowledge" from the archive will be questioned, read, researched and interpreted with a focus on "construction as a cultural technique".

The Munich Olympic facilities of 1972 are among the most important highlights of post-war modernism in the Federal Republic of Germany, with which Germany was able to join the ranks of the leading architectural nations.

The saai collection "Günter Behnisch und Partner" comprises around 66,000 plans, 60,000 photos, 140 models, 65 shelf meters of document publications and 1,000 shelf meters of construction files. In addition to these materials from the architectural practice, the estate also contains private documents such as travel slides and teaching materials from Günter Behnisch.

The research seminar is a cooperation between the Department of Architectural Theory and the saai. Based on material from Rolf Lederbogen's work archive, the focus is on contemporary and historical theories, images and questions about the cultural history of atomic energy in architecture, art, science and technology.