Introduction

Abstract

This chapter looks at the conscious effort by architectural practices to consider archives as the computer entered the world of design practice in the 1980s, of which many architects developed an awareness and concern about their legacy. It talks about offices and large firms that began investing effort in organizing and cataloguing their archives systematically. It also demonstrates a different process that shows how architects keep traces of the recent past, traces of practice, as they increasingly pay attention to the importance of archives. The chapter analyzes the mechanisms of constructing archives and the process of archiving as keys for understanding how historical sources in architecture are established. It examines what it means to be an archivist of architecture, which tends to come from the archivists themselves, rather than from professional architects or researchers interested in the practices of archiving.