AnnMarie Brennan
University of Melbourne, Abp, Faculty Member
- Architecture, Architectural Design, Industrial Design, Political Economy of Design, Machines, Media Studies, and 26 moreARCHITECTURAL HISTORY, THEORY AND CRITICISM, Graphic design history, Olivetti, Media, Advertising, Forecasting, Italian magazines, Art History, Urban Planning, Visual Studies, Urban Design, Housing, Computer Aided Design, Digital Architecture, Branding, Urban And Regional Planning, Spatial Analysis, Space and Place, Digital Media & Learning, Cultural History, Cultural Theory, Film Studies, Contemporary Art, Political Theory, Semiotics, and Gilbert Simondonedit
The technological innovation and unprecedented physical growth of the cold war era permeated American life in every aspect and at every scale. From the creation of the military-industrial complex and the beginnings of suburban sprawl to... more
The technological innovation and unprecedented physical growth of the cold war era permeated American life in every aspect and at every scale. From the creation of the military-industrial complex and the beginnings of suburban sprawl to the production of the ballpoint pen and the TV dinner, the artifacts of the period are a numerous and diverse as they are familiar. Over the past half-century, our awe at the advances of postwar society has softened to nostalgia, and our affection for its material culture has clouded our memories of the enormous spatial reorganizations and infrastructural transformations that changed American life forever.
Cold War Hot Houses casts a clear, even playful, eye on this pivotal time in history, examining topics as diverse as the creation of the interstate highway system and the shopping center, and the domestication of the national parks as well as the production of such seemingly mundane products as the drive-in theater, aluminum foil, and the king-size bed. The result is a vivid snapshot of American culture that still resonates today.
Cold War Hot Houses casts a clear, even playful, eye on this pivotal time in history, examining topics as diverse as the creation of the interstate highway system and the shopping center, and the domestication of the national parks as well as the production of such seemingly mundane products as the drive-in theater, aluminum foil, and the king-size bed. The result is a vivid snapshot of American culture that still resonates today.
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Computer Architectures is a collection of multidisciplinary historical works unearthing sites, concepts, and concerns that catalyzed the cross-contamination of computers and architecture in the mid-20th century. Weaving together... more
Computer Architectures is a collection of multidisciplinary historical works unearthing sites, concepts, and concerns that catalyzed the cross-contamination of computers and architecture in the mid-20th century.
Weaving together intellectual, social, cultural, and material histories, this book paints the landscape that brought computing into the imagination, production, and management of the built environment, whilst foregrounding the impact of architecture in shaping technological development. The book is organized into sections corresponding to the classic von Neumann diagram for computer architecture: program (control unit), storage (memory), input/output and computation (arithmetic/logic unit), each acting as a quasi-material category for parsing debates among architects, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists. Collectively, authors bring forth the striking homologies between a computer program and an architectural program, a wall and an interface, computer memory and storage architectures, structures of mathematics and structures of things. The collection initiates new histories of knowledge and technology production that turn an eye toward disciplinary fusions and their institutional and intellectual drives.
Constructing the common ground between design and computing, this collection addresses audiences working at the nexus of design, technology, and society, including historians and practitioners of design and architecture, science and technology scholars, and media studies scholars.
Weaving together intellectual, social, cultural, and material histories, this book paints the landscape that brought computing into the imagination, production, and management of the built environment, whilst foregrounding the impact of architecture in shaping technological development. The book is organized into sections corresponding to the classic von Neumann diagram for computer architecture: program (control unit), storage (memory), input/output and computation (arithmetic/logic unit), each acting as a quasi-material category for parsing debates among architects, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists. Collectively, authors bring forth the striking homologies between a computer program and an architectural program, a wall and an interface, computer memory and storage architectures, structures of mathematics and structures of things. The collection initiates new histories of knowledge and technology production that turn an eye toward disciplinary fusions and their institutional and intellectual drives.
Constructing the common ground between design and computing, this collection addresses audiences working at the nexus of design, technology, and society, including historians and practitioners of design and architecture, science and technology scholars, and media studies scholars.
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Employing the characteristics of phenomenal transparency, Do Ho Suh's fabric artworks emphasize the different ways in which three-dimensional space has historically been represented in both Eastern and Western cultures. This essay focuses... more
Employing the characteristics of phenomenal transparency, Do Ho Suh's fabric artworks emphasize the different ways in which three-dimensional space has historically been represented in both Eastern and Western cultures. This essay focuses on an aspect of Suh's practice that engages with architecture, its traditions of spatial visual ambiguity in modern painting and architecture 'phenomenal transparency.'
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Rather than surrendering the ideals of the Radical Design movement, the work of the Italian design groups Alchimia and Memphis attempted to radicalize by other means; to continue the battle over cultural and aesthetic values through the... more
Rather than surrendering the ideals of the Radical Design movement, the work of the Italian design groups Alchimia and Memphis attempted to radicalize by other means; to continue the battle over cultural and aesthetic values through the design of ugly, kitsch and ironic products for the marketplace. This approach, communicated in the Alchimia manifesto and Mendini’s 1979 essay ‘Per un’architettura banale,’ was influenced by the work of French communication theorist Abraham Moles. This essay revisits these texts and the previous debates in Italian design culture on kitsch and mass media and questions the role of media in formulating the aesthetic of Alchimia and Memphis and their characteristic kitsch style.
Research Interests: Kitsch, Italian Design, Postmodern Architecture, Gillo Dorfles, Alchimia, and 13 moreRadical design, Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini, Design and Media, Memphis Design, Abraham Moles, Modernism and Postmodernism In Architecture, Casabella, Italian design magazines, Italian Postmodern Architecture, Italian postmodern design, Barbara Radice, and Postmodern industrial design
This essay revisits a chapter in the history of the design and production of early computers in Italy. It looks at the creation of the Olivetti Elea 9003 and the company's manufacturing of numerically-controlled machine tools in order to... more
This essay revisits a chapter in the history of the design and production of early computers in Italy. It looks at the creation of the Olivetti Elea 9003 and the company's manufacturing of numerically-controlled machine tools in order to examine their effect on transforming traditional modes of production. these machines, along with their theorization by writers and artists, brought about a new strategy of design - parametric thinking - to Olivetti designers. With these changes, members of the Workerist movement began to theorize the changing role of the factory worker, and discovered that the design and engineering of Olivetti computers and NC machines generated a new type of worker called 'the technician.' This essay illustrates the connection between the Olivetti designers and engineers who created these machines and the design of the new type of labor these new machines conjured. All of these events and characters converge around one of the major industries in Italy at the time: the Olivetti company.
Research Interests: History of Technology, CNC Machine tools programming, Operaismo, Italian Design, Architectural history and theory, and 15 moreComputer numerical control, History of Italian Design, Olivetti, History of Computing, Computer industry, Machines Bull, Ettore Sottsass, Political Economy of Design, Raniero Panzieri, Arte programmata, Romano Alquati, Olivetti Computers, Andries Van Onck, NC machine tools, Workerists, History of Machine Tools, and Olivetti Elea 9003
The concept of dynamic forces shaping form in order to increase performance was the foundation of Buckminster Fuller's most noted project, the Dymaxion House. While Fuller is best known for his dome structures, the Dymaxion House is... more
The concept of dynamic forces shaping form in order to increase performance was the foundation of Buckminster Fuller's most noted project, the Dymaxion House. While Fuller is best known for his dome structures, the Dymaxion House is perhaps the most important failed architecture project of the twentieth century. The house's significance, however, lies in the fact that Fuller reimagined the way people would live in the future, and introduced to the architectural profession new criteria by which to judge and assess housing design, which was according to a standard of improved performance, not unlike the manufacturing and performance standards of industrially-engineered objects such as boats, cars, and airplanes.
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Research Interests:
The article examines three key works by the Italian designer Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1918 – 2006), whose career began in urban planning and architecture yet proceeded to gain the most success within the field of industrial design. It... more
The article examines three key works by the Italian designer Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1918 – 2006), whose career began in urban planning and architecture yet proceeded to gain the most success within the field of industrial design. It foregrounds her interdisciplinary career, traversing professional boundaries between the fields of urban planning, architecture and industrial design through a socio-technical framework of the material objects that she designed. By investigating the commercial success of the Kartell 4970-84 Modular containers, the 4870 Stackable Chair, and the 4822-44 Stool, this research identifies a particular characteristic of Castelli Ferrieri’s design method; an approach which, this article argues, draws upon her education, knowledge, and experience in architecture. It is with these projects that we can see how Castelli Ferrieri attempted to create, with the limitations of manufacturing processes and the characteristics of materials: a tectonics of plastic. https://issuu.com/rmitdesignarchives/docs/rda_journal_26_12.1_issuu
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This article examines the Labyrinth, a multi-screen pavilion created by the National Film Board of Canada for the Montréal World Exposition in 1967. Within the Labyrinth, audiences were corralled through three chambers, each containing... more
This article examines the Labyrinth, a multi-screen pavilion created by the National Film Board of Canada for the Montréal World Exposition in 1967. Within the Labyrinth, audiences were corralled through three chambers, each containing immersive multimedia environments that were designed to represent the chapters of an essential human life. The National Film Board envisaged the Labyrinth as a ‘new kind of instrument for communication […] created by the marriage of two ordinarily unrelated fields — the art of cinema and the art of architecture’. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the exact nature of this marriage of mediums. We will specifically focus on assessing the ways by which architectural space curated the phenomenological and epistemological relation that the audience had with the cinematic presentations in each chamber. Based on archival and primary sources, our research traces the design development of the Labyrinth and interprets its significance by employing Marshall McLuhan’s concepts of visual and acoustic space. As such, the article demonstrates how the Labyrinth modulated the balance between meaningful and affective modes of communication within its telling of the human story.
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Just as the capabilities of machine tool design influenced the aesthetic form of streamlined industrial design products during the mechanical age, the embedded curves and splines of digital software employed by architects today originated... more
Just as the capabilities of machine tool design influenced the aesthetic form of streamlined industrial design products during the mechanical age, the embedded curves and splines of digital software employed by architects today originated in the offices of automobile and aeroplane manufacturers from the post-war era. The use and reproduction of smooth, curvilinear forms would not appear in the field of architecture until many decades after their development within industrial design. The current relationship between architecture and industrial design is forged through the innovative use of Computer Numerical Control fabrication and the parametric procedures and software invented for its use. This article investigates the history of designing and fabricating complex, curved surfaces in industrial design and architecture in order to establish the technological and theoretical links between these two fields. It involves the transfer of technological knowledge amongst a diverse cast of designers, engineers and architects from multiple continents that took place over a period of 40 years. Moreover, this research claims that the origins of parametric architectural design can be found in this moment of developing and programming numerically controlled machines.
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The journal that would have the most lasting impact in establishing a coherent movement of Postmodern American architecture was a student-edited journal named 'Perspecta,' no. 9/10, published by the Yale School of Architecture and edited... more
The journal that would have the most lasting impact in establishing a coherent movement of Postmodern American architecture was a student-edited journal named 'Perspecta,' no. 9/10, published by the Yale School of Architecture and edited by Robert A.M. Stern, accomplished architect and former Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale University, He assembled a cadre of author-architects to contribute to the journal, a group who would go on to shape the U.S. architectural scene for the next 20 years. His editorial objective was to present new emerging 'talent', which consisted of young architects who defined a new American movement in architecture. Three significant contributors of this particular 'Perspecta' issue were 'undiscovered' Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, and, most interestingly, Romaldo Giurgola, who was an Italian architect and academic but had immigrated to the U.S. after receiving the Italian Fulbright scholarships. Looking back at this moment, it is intriguing to discover what defined the work featured in these magazines as 'American,' especially since one of its central figures, Giurgola, established his reputation as an educator teaching architectural history and theory subjects based on Italian precedents and treatises at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
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Design and Culture The Journal of the Design Studies Forum This paper revisits the creative work of the Australian magazine Oz and its founding editors Martin Sharp (1942-2013) and Richard Neville (1941-2016). Established in Sydney on... more
Design and Culture The Journal of the Design Studies Forum
This paper revisits the creative work of the Australian magazine Oz and its founding editors Martin Sharp (1942-2013) and Richard Neville (1941-2016). Established in Sydney on April Fool's Day in 1963 as a satirical magazine, the editors migrated to London in 1967, where the UK version of Oz garnered its status as the underground field guide for enlightened hippies. This paper claims that the visual and rhetorical editorial strategy of Oz, coupled with the technologies employed in its making, transformed the medium of the magazine to be more than simply a cipher for hippie life. In fact, it became a platform for immersive, multimedia experiences.
This paper revisits the creative work of the Australian magazine Oz and its founding editors Martin Sharp (1942-2013) and Richard Neville (1941-2016). Established in Sydney on April Fool's Day in 1963 as a satirical magazine, the editors migrated to London in 1967, where the UK version of Oz garnered its status as the underground field guide for enlightened hippies. This paper claims that the visual and rhetorical editorial strategy of Oz, coupled with the technologies employed in its making, transformed the medium of the magazine to be more than simply a cipher for hippie life. In fact, it became a platform for immersive, multimedia experiences.
Research Interests: Technology, Media Studies, Architecture, Australian History, Marshall McLuhan, and 14 moreFriedrich Kittler, Counterculture, History and Theory of Modern Architecture, Immersive Environments, LSD, LSD and Mind Expansion, Posters, Architecture Magazines and Journals, Lsd Culture, Countercultures of the 1960s, Richard Neville, Architectural discourse, Martin Sharp, and Oz magazine
Contemporary discourse on the changing modes of production by Autonomist Marxist theorists such as Paolo Virno, Franco Berardi, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and Maurizio Lazzarato provides insights into the ongoing shift from an economy... more
Contemporary discourse on the changing modes of production by Autonomist Marxist theorists such as Paolo Virno, Franco Berardi, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and Maurizio Lazzarato provides insights into the ongoing shift from an economy based on the material labour of producing physical goods, to one served increasingly by immaterial labour. In light of these texts, this paper revisits a point of origin of Autonomist political thought at the Olivetti factory in Italy during the 1960s, where the problems of a programmed, cybernetic human/machine assembly line were first observed. It endeavours to examine both the objects that were created as a result of immaterial labour practices as well as the machines which may have actually played a key role in forming contemporary modes of immaterial labour. This is accomplished by examining the case studies that demonstrate the various iterations of an idea essential to the concept of immaterial labour – the practice of programming. Featuring a unique constellation of Olivetti products from the 1960s, the purpose of this text is to add historical relevance and theoretical rigour to these seemingly disparate series of objects, and to present a potential genealogy of immaterial labour brought about by the design and making of Olivetti machines.
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, Design, Architecture, Design History, Industrial Design, and 8 moreArchitectural History, Design History and Theory, Architectural Theory, Labor History and Studies, Architectural Design, Architectural Theory and Design, Olivetti, and History of Machines and Mechanisms
An urban design fiction co-authored with Lasse Kilvaer. In a time where architects are offering the appearance of a naturalized built environment, Melbourne Australia is faced with an uncontrollable organism that reorganizes and... more
An urban design fiction co-authored with Lasse Kilvaer.
In a time where architects are offering the appearance of a naturalized built environment, Melbourne Australia is faced with an uncontrollable organism that reorganizes and re-appropriates the concrete matter of the city. The organism, nicknamed Muronoma by locals, slowly eats its way through living rooms and cubicles, leaving webbed, coral-like tunnels in its wake—spaces which provide habitat for a new wilderness in the heart of the city. American journalist Gabriella Canui travels to Melbourne to write a feature article on the organism and its consequences on the daily lives of Melbournites, but goes missing and never delivers her piece. After her disappearance, the CIA and their local ally the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) suspects Gabriella of joining the Architecture and Urbanism Bio-Terrorist Underground Syndicate, a.k.a. AUBTUS. As UNESCO is conducting a larger investigation on the Muronoma phenomenon, they request the CIA dossier on Gabriella Canui, including printouts of her notes and a series of transcribed interviews. The origin of Chemotaxopolis is told through these documents.
In a time where architects are offering the appearance of a naturalized built environment, Melbourne Australia is faced with an uncontrollable organism that reorganizes and re-appropriates the concrete matter of the city. The organism, nicknamed Muronoma by locals, slowly eats its way through living rooms and cubicles, leaving webbed, coral-like tunnels in its wake—spaces which provide habitat for a new wilderness in the heart of the city. American journalist Gabriella Canui travels to Melbourne to write a feature article on the organism and its consequences on the daily lives of Melbournites, but goes missing and never delivers her piece. After her disappearance, the CIA and their local ally the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) suspects Gabriella of joining the Architecture and Urbanism Bio-Terrorist Underground Syndicate, a.k.a. AUBTUS. As UNESCO is conducting a larger investigation on the Muronoma phenomenon, they request the CIA dossier on Gabriella Canui, including printouts of her notes and a series of transcribed interviews. The origin of Chemotaxopolis is told through these documents.
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The traumatic disruption of everyday life caused by World War II and the Reconstruction that followed reconfigured the relationship between the “inside” and “outside” in post-war Rome. This theme was projected onto the Neorealist screen... more
The traumatic disruption of everyday life caused by World War II and the Reconstruction that followed reconfigured the relationship between the “inside” and “outside” in post-war Rome. This theme was projected onto the Neorealist screen in different forms, rupturing the connection between centre and periphery, domestic and urban. This paper analyses four Neorealist films for their structure, layered meanings, and discourses to uncover the urban politics at play in post-war Rome. It examines the Neorealist city in these films through the cognitive and temporal theoretical frameworks of Kevin Lynch and Gilles Deleuze.
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Few historical investigations have accomplished the dual task of writing the history of a significant postmodern architectural moment while simultaneously unpacking its defining theoretical concepts. Maybe that historical period is still... more
Few historical investigations have accomplished the dual task of writing the history of a significant postmodern architectural moment while simultaneously unpacking its defining theoretical concepts. Maybe that historical period is still too close to our own. Or perhaps documenting an ouroboric movement such as postmodernism, one that centered on history and the revial of architectural styles, is itself the problem.
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In 1968, the architect and designer Ettore Sottsass was charged with designing a new series of furniture for the Olivetti Company that would accommodate the shifting nature of work from the factory to the office. He did not design a... more
In 1968, the architect and designer Ettore Sottsass was charged with designing a new series of furniture for the Olivetti Company that would accommodate the shifting nature of work from the factory to the office. He did not design a collection of traditional, individual pieces of furniture, but created a system in which office chairs, desks, filing cabinets and other furniture were envisioned as a series of interchangeable, modular parts that fit into a grid-based system. The furniture could also be sold as individual pieces or as a landscape to fit out an entire office space floor.
In designing the Synthesis 45 series, Sottsass drew upon his experience designing Italy’s first mainframe computer, the Olivetti Elea 9003. The final result was a modular-based system designed to be like a type of game or kit of interchangeable parts: flexible within a set of parameters, easily assembled, delivered, and then re-assembled and re-configured within a configuration in a client’s laboratory or office basement. This paper presents the history of Sottsass and his collaborators in creating the Olivetti Synthesis 45.
In designing the Synthesis 45 series, Sottsass drew upon his experience designing Italy’s first mainframe computer, the Olivetti Elea 9003. The final result was a modular-based system designed to be like a type of game or kit of interchangeable parts: flexible within a set of parameters, easily assembled, delivered, and then re-assembled and re-configured within a configuration in a client’s laboratory or office basement. This paper presents the history of Sottsass and his collaborators in creating the Olivetti Synthesis 45.
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This paper introduces an interactive 3D scanning tool (Quokka) that generates real time point clouds and surfaces in a design program (Rhinoceros). It explains the use of this tool through a detailed experiment, suggesting a new mode of... more
This paper introduces an interactive 3D scanning tool (Quokka) that generates real time point clouds and surfaces in a design program (Rhinoceros). It explains the use of this tool through a detailed experiment, suggesting a new mode of design using a dynamic, three-dimensional grid.
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This paper revisits the exported creative work of Australian editors Martin Sharp and author Richard Neville and their magazine - Oz. Established in Sydney on April Fool's Day in 1963 as a satirical magazine, its founders would become... more
This paper revisits the exported creative work of Australian editors Martin Sharp and author Richard Neville and their magazine - Oz. Established in Sydney on April Fool's Day in 1963 as a satirical magazine, its founders would become known, or rather infamous, for being charged on multiple occasions for obscenity violations. In 1967 a London version was created, where it garnered a new status as being the publication for enlightened hippies.
This paper explores three potent sites within the magazine that demonstrate the manner in which the editors were able to counter the status quo through the process of joke making: a modernist building, the medium of the poster, and a magic theatre. These sites are poignant moments that coincidence with a shift within architecture culture, where the built environment was beginning to be 'read' as a text. The emergence of this structuralist evaluation occurs throughout the pages of Oz, suggesting an alternative origin to post-modern approaches in architecture that arose as a consequence of the relationship between the magazine page and the creation of alternative environments to counter conservative hegemonic culture.
This paper explores three potent sites within the magazine that demonstrate the manner in which the editors were able to counter the status quo through the process of joke making: a modernist building, the medium of the poster, and a magic theatre. These sites are poignant moments that coincidence with a shift within architecture culture, where the built environment was beginning to be 'read' as a text. The emergence of this structuralist evaluation occurs throughout the pages of Oz, suggesting an alternative origin to post-modern approaches in architecture that arose as a consequence of the relationship between the magazine page and the creation of alternative environments to counter conservative hegemonic culture.
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This conference paper summarizes the initial findings of a research project which specifically focuses on the discourse and problematics regarding architecture that occurred within Italian journals. The magazine, journal and notebook were... more
This conference paper summarizes the initial findings of a research project which specifically focuses on the discourse and problematics regarding architecture that occurred within Italian journals. The magazine, journal and notebook were an important medium in Italian society, where media and information is understood as a national resource. This paper entails the collection and analysis of critical articles found in a specific selection of Italian periodicals which created part of a larger strategy of communication by the Italian industrialist Adriano Olivetti that featured articles on architecture for audiences made up of both architects and non-architects.
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Most histories of digital design in architecture are limited, and begin with the initial investigations into artificial intelligence by the Architecture Machine Group at MIT during the 1960s, and end with a mention of the Evolutionary... more
Most histories of digital design in architecture are limited, and begin with the initial investigations into artificial intelligence by the Architecture Machine Group at MIT during the 1960s, and end with a mention of the Evolutionary Architecture at the ArchitectureAssociation during the late 1980s and early 1990s. However if one was to examine many of the artworks created during this time, several artists were working with similar ideas, concepts, and technologies on artificial intelligence. This paper is a media archaeology of responsive environments in contemporary practice.It endeavors to discover the historical and theoretical genealogy of affective, experiential, collaborative work of emerging, contemporary, transdisciplinary groups such as UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS. It does so by revisiting some of the projects by the 1966 artist collaborative, PULSA: People Using Light and SoundArtistically. Both the historical and contemporary examples presented here serve as examples in which...
Perspecta 32 is an investigation into architectural modernism in a postmodern age and an exploration of surface as a subject with depth. If it is understood that we are now in an age that does not look at modernity uncritically, how does... more
Perspecta 32 is an investigation into architectural modernism in a postmodern age and an exploration of surface as a subject with depth. If it is understood that we are now in an age that does not look at modernity uncritically, how does its optimistic imagery continue to play a vital role in architecture? We have seized the phenomenon of the recent resurgence of formal and stylistic attributes associated with mid-century modernism as an opportunity to survey a panoply of cultural issues that lurk behind surface appearances.