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AHO WORKS RESEARCH 2012
OCCAS
by which architecture (including landscapes
and cities) informs public culture. Built struc-
tures are part of this, of course, but so are the
intricate ways in which architecture is mediat-
ed through print culture, exhibitions, models,
and other means of representation, contrib-
uting to ongoing processes of cultural contes-
tation. The second is the field of heritage and
preservation. Curating the past for contempo-
rary consumption, architectural preservation
and conservation offer particularly rich exam-
ples of the way architecture takes part in the
negotiation of cultural values. The third arena
is historiography and the processes of canoni-
zation: the ways in which architectural history
writing has shaped not only our conception
of past environments but also, fundamentally,
conditioned architectural practice in the mod-
ern period by establishing and contesting the
canon. All ongoing OCCAS research projects
pertain to these three over-arching fields, and
so does the centre’s teaching portfolio, includ-
ing research based master’s studios, elective
courses, and PhD seminars.
The OCCAS project “Routes, Roads and
Landscapes. Aesthetic Practices en route,
1750–2015” was formally concluded in 2012,
after four years. “Place and Displacement:
Exhibiting Architecture” runs for two more
years, and the project was a venue for prolific
academic exchange, publications and seminars
in 2012. Other projects include “19
th
Century
Historical Imaginations” and the research
network “Architectural Culture, Society and
Postmodernism in Scandinavia 1968–1995”.
The first studies architectural imaginations
expressed in texts, documents, drawings and
photography alongside buildings, and inves-
tigates architectural historicism as a complex
theoretical, historiographical and textual con-
struction. Involving master studios, this pro-
ject is meticulously archive based and has so
far resulted in both exhibitions and a series of
publications. The second focuses on how post-
modern architecture emerged and changed
in the Scandinavian countries in relation to
economy, politics, and the public debate of the
Nordic welfare states, and is conducted as a
collaboration between OCCAS, KTH School
of Architecture and the Museum of Architec-
ture, both in Stockholm, and NTNU, the Nor-
wegian University of Science, and Technology
in Trondheim.
The built environment plays a part in vir-
tually all dimensions of society, making it an
all-encompassing object of study. As a conse-
quence, architectural research encompasses in
itself an array of disciplines and approaches,
ranging from technology, environmental and
social science, to aesthetics, cultural history
and the history of ideas. OCCAS is situated at
the humanist end of this spectrum, in a rap-
idly growing international field focusing on
architecture as a site of cultural contestation.
The inescapable public significance of the built
environment makes architectural research a
