Archives, Bureaucracies, Architecture: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Editorial Summary In her text, Anna-Maria Meister focuses on the production and dissemination of norms, normed objects, standards, bureaucratic measures, and administrative processes as social desires in German modern architecture. She states that we must treat them as formal and political acts of »Gestaltung« and critically probe their ideological intent and human consequence since the regulations in place, the order imagined, or the systems constructed were as formative to what we now know as Modern Architecture, as aesthetics or so-called Avant-Garde architects. As a result, rules and codes are »aesthetic tools« rather than mere »bureaucratic impediments«. She claims that it is necessary to research beyond the beaten path to include those contents that are usually left by the wayside, thus revealing and constructing alternative archives and histories. [Ferdinand Ludwig]