Printing the Past: Architecture, Print Culture and Uses of the Past in Modern Europe

This project examines the relationship between architecture, print culture and uses of the past in modern Europe and beyond. Looking primarily at architectural debate from the eighteenth to early twentieth century, this project studies the ways in which new notions of the past were negotiated and constructed through architecture.

Based at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO), this multidisciplinary humanities project involves researchers from:

• Leiden University
• Ghent University
• University College London

The project also involves designers and curators from:

• Victoria and Albert Museum/Royal Institute of British Architects, London
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo
• the digital media lab Factum Arte, Madrid/Bologna

This negotiation took place not only in stone but on paper, not least in the illustrated press emerging from the 1830s onwards, spreading architectural texts and images to new audiences in Europe, European colonies and USA.

PriArc queries the ways architecture was used to construct, promote and interrogate narratives of historical continuity, patrimony and progress. It does this by studying architectural debate in the public and professional press, including newspapers, trade journals, museum catalogues and popular magazines. By means of hitherto neglected historical material, PriArc studies the preconditions of architectural culture in the contemporary world.