School of Architecture and Planning Centenary: 7. The Technical Detail

Nov 6, 2017By Posted in: Creative Arts and IndustriesTagged in: ,

100 years/100 books: School of Architecture and Planning Centenary, 1917-2017
Library Exhibition Series No. 7. The Technical Detail

100 years/100 books: School of Architecture and Planning Centenary, 1917-2017 Library Exhibition Series No. 7. The Technical DetailWelcome to the penultimate instalment of the 100 years/100 books series, curated by Michael Milojevic, School of Architecture and Planning Professional Teaching Fellow; and Sarah Cox, Architecture Archivist.

This exhibition ties in with the technical detail assessments which take place this time of year. Architecture students are putting into practice the theory and concepts they have learned and developed. As design ideas are realised through construction, an understanding is gained of the properties of materials and the processes involved with them.

There are many examples of architects getting involved in the execution of the details they themselves designed, such as Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz laying bricks alongside brick layers to get the technique of cloisonné brick courses right.

100 years/100 books: School of Architecture and Planning Centenary, 1917-2017 Library Exhibition Series No. 7. The Technical DetailThe Library offers students examples and information to support their design of technical details. These materials teach different aspects of the design and construction of buildings. In the exhibition we have a large technical annotated drawing of the lower level of the Eiffel Tower explaining the design of the structure and its materials. Other items on display include a double page spread from Buckminster Fuller’s Inventions depicting the construction of one of his patented geodesic domes for which he became famous.

Technical details are what can make a building iconic, and bring a point of difference to otherwise often uniform buildings. Examples include Mies van der Rohe’s steel clad frames or Frank Lloyd Wright’s vast cantilevered decks. On display are contemporary issues of the journals Detail and Architectural Design, which encourage discourse on the role of custom details in the current age of increasing standardisation.

The Technical Detail will be on display at the Architecture and Planning Library until Friday 17 November.

100 years/100 books: School of Architecture and Planning Centenary, 1917-2017 Library Exhibition Series No. 7. The Technical Detail

Johanna Holzke, Library Assistant, Architecture and Planning Library