Lab Cult: An unorthodox history of interchanges between science and architecture

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents "Lab Cult: an unorthodox history of exchanges between science and architecture". The exhibition takes place in the Octagonal Gallery of the CEC, and is curated by Evangelos Kotsioris, CCA Emerging Curator 2016-2017. In it, the concept of the laboratory is investigated as a recurrent metaphor for experimentation in both science and architecture.

As a place for the conduct of rigorous research, the lab has been an incredibly productive concept for both of these fields. But at the same time, this exhibition provocatively argues, the laboratory has developed into a cult – its seeming credibility has been repeatedly mobilized in order to normalize social behaviors, discipline the performance of bodies, regulate our environments, standardize the ways we live.

Kotsioris conducted his research during a three month residency at the CCA and developed the curatorial approach of the exhibition by juxtaposing archival material from the CCA collection with models, scientific instruments, photographs and films on loan from more than twelve international archives, museums, collections and scientific institutions. The majority of these interrelated objects will find themselves sharing the same space for the first time at the CCA.

The CCA Emerging Curator program offers the opportunity to propose and curate a project at the CCA related to contemporary debates in architecture, urban issues, landscape design, and cultural and social dynamics.

Today, after many decades of questioning science’s capacity to provide answers to architecture’s social mandate, architects and designers are once again enchanted with the concept of the laboratory. Originally conceived as the physical space for the practice of alchemy and crystalized in its modern form during the Enlightenment, the laboratory has become an omnipresent term in architectural education, practice and theory.

Architecture schools, corporate firms and governmental think tanks are once again saturated with “design labs,” all of which promise to provide objective and precise solutions to contemporary design challenges. In its ubiquity as metaphor, physical space, and visual aesthetic, the laboratory has become an unquestioned dogma. At a moment when science and the production of scientific knowledge are once again undergoing an attack, architecture’s reinvigorated faith in the infallibility of science paradoxically resembles the blind devotion of a religious cult.

Instead of reinforcing any preconceived hierarchies between these two fields, Lab Cult explores a more symmetrical narrative. Through an eclectic juxtaposition of case studies from science and architecture, this exhibition suggests a history of close-knit relationships and mutual exchanges. Architects are often accused of borrowing, transforming or even misappropriating scientific ideas, tools and working protocols in their attempt to systematize the intuitive aspects of the creative process. At the same time, though, scientists strongly rely on architectural concepts, representations and material means to stage and communicate sophisticated set-ups of rigorous investigation.
 

Why the lab? Why now?

Laboratories are always political; whatever experiment takes places inside them has a profound impact on the world outside. Today, the curricula and exercises taught in architecture schools around the world are still indebted to late 19th century experiments on visual perception and motor skills.

Contemporary understandings of ergonomics and spatial efficiency, which find applications from office environments to kitchens in our homes, can be traced back to theories of scientific management that influenced a generation of modernist architects. Present-day theories of climate control and sustainability are based on the early use of physical models in wind tunnel testing by both architects and scientists.

Similarly, the proliferation of surveillance technologies that extract information from our behavior—from CCTV cameras to the algorithms that select the ads that appear on our phones—cannot be understood without the development of behavior psychology, which fascinated both physicians and urbanists before the Second World War. And our daily interaction with sensor control systems—which are everywhere, from automatic doors and elevators to bathroom flushes and thermostats—cannot be understood outside the theory of cybernetics that was popularized during the 1940s and 50s. In order to reengineer all of these experiments and their consequences for everyday life, one needs to go back to their inception in the lab.

Themes and Case Studies

The exhibition is organized under six themes: "Designing Instruments", "Measuring Movement", "Visualizing Forces", "Testing Animals", "Building Models" and "Observing Behaviour". Each of these themes is presented by pairing one historical case study from science with one from architecture. Ranging from the late 19th century to the early 1980s, these case studies identify the ways in which working concepts, methods and protocols have been exchanged across different time periods between scientists and architects of diverse disciplinary backgrounds, such as architecture, psychology, engineering, physiology, mathematics, industrial design, computer science and others.