Architecture Museums and Digital Design Media (completed)

A research theme in the Cultural Heritage Mediascapes project that investigates the collection, preservation and exhibition of digital architectural materials. 

Two persons in a room, one wears a virtual reality headset and holds two touch controllers.

Virtual reality

Photo: Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

About the project

The archives of architectural firms, including models and drawings, are an important source of cultural heritage, providing insight into design processes and architectural history. However, digital design media produced in architectural practice pose unique challenges to collecting, preserving, and exhibition practices in museums.

This theme studies the challenges of producing, collecting, preserving and exhibiting digital design media in ways that deepen experts' and visitors' experiences and knowledge of architecture.

  • What material is considered most significant by the architect, the client, the curator and the public to understand the design process?
  • What material is considered most significant by the architect, the client, the curator and the public to understand the final building?
  • How do young people understand and experience architecture in museum exhibitions?

Birgitte Sauge

Birgitte Sauge is Senior Curator in the Architecture Department at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway and Editor of the Norwegian journal Norsk museumstidsskrift. She has a Dr. Art. in Art History from the University of Bergen (2004). Her research is focused on Norwegian architectural history from the 20th century, architectural competitions, documentation and archives. She holds a research position in the interdisciplinary project «Architecture Museums and Digital Design Media», which is part of the larger project Cultural Heritage Mediascapes, organized by the Department of Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo and financed by the Norwegian Research Council.

Conference Presentations

Sauge, B. & Qvale, A. (2020) Real Visitors and Virtual Reality in Architecture Exhibitions. Nordic VR Forum 2020, Hamar, Norway, October 28-29, 2020.

Pierroux, P., Steier, R., Sauge, B., Qvale, A., Rudi, J., Liu, T., and Larsen, O.P. (2019) Virtual Reality Architecture Exhibitions: Means for Experimenting with Future Objects in Anticipation Studies. Anticipation 2019. Oslo School of Architecture and Design, October 9–11, 2019.

Pierroux, P., Steier, R. and Qvale, A. (2019) Studying Visitors' Exhibition Experiences in a Virtual Reality Environment. Visitor Studies Association Annual Conference. Detroit, July 10-13, 2019.

Rudi, J. (2019) Designing and evaluating soundscapes in virtual reality exhibitions. Visitor Studies Association Annual Conference. Detroit, July 10-13, 2019.

Pierroux, P., Steier, R., Sauge, B., Qvale, A., Liu, T., Larse, O.P., and Rudi, J. (2019) Anticipating Embodied Virtual Experiences in Architecture Exhibitions. Anticipation 2019. Oslo, October 9-11, 2019.

Sauge, B. and Steier, R. (2018) Real Visitors and Virtual Reality in Architecture Exhibitions. Society of Architectural Historians 71th Annual Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 18-22, 2018.

Sauge, B. (2018). Designing and preserving Digital Architecture: Correlations between Architecture Firms and Collecting Repositories. Paper presented at the ICAM 19: Migrating Ideas, Copenhagen. September 9-13.

Sauge, B. (2018). The Forest in the House: Architecture exhibition experiment as a design-based research practice partnership. Paper presented at the ICAM 19: Migrating Ideas, Copenhagen. September 9-13.

Sauge, B. (2017) Digital design media in architects´ practices and impact on architecture archives and museums. European architectural history network, 5th Thematic Conference: Tools of the Architect. TU Delft and Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, The Netherlands, November, 22-24, 2017.

Sauge, B. (2016) To Bim or not to BIM? A study of the use of BIM in Architecture Competitions and its impact on practice. 6th International Conference on Architecture Competitions: The Competition Mesh. Leeds Beckett University, October 27-28, 2016.

Sauge publications (selected)

Pierroux, P., Sauge, B., and Steier, R. (in press) Exhibitions as a Collaborative Research Space for University-Museum Partnerships. In M.H. Pedersen, M. Achiam & K. Drotner (Eds.), Experimental Museology: Institutions, representations, users. London: Routledge.
 
Sauge, B. (2019) Digital Design Media in Norwegian Architect´s current Practice, Survey 2016-2017. Oslo: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Norway. Unpublished report, 28 pp. pdf
 
Pierroux, P., Steier, R., and Sauge, B. (2019) Born Digital Architectural Projects: Imagining, Designing and Exhibiting Practices. In Å. Mäkitalo, T. Nicewonger & M. Elam (Eds.), Designs for Experimentation and Inquiry: Approaching Learning and Knowing in Digital Transformation. Chapter 5, pp. 87-109. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
 
Sauge, B. (2018) To BIM or not to BIM? A study of interpretation of BIM in architectural competitions. In M. Theodorou and A. Katsakou (Eds.),The Competition Mesh: Experimenting With and Within Architecture Competitions, RIBA Enterprises Ltd.
 
Sauge, B. (2016) Gavnlig kappestrid for nye ideer og nye krefter. Arkitektkonkurransene om Stortingsbygningen. In G. Wahl (Ed.), Stortingsbygningen 150 år. To arkitektkonkurranser,Henjum: Oslo, pp. 50-65.

Sauge, B. (2015) Arkitektur og utstillinger som berører. En studie av nyere basisutstillinger i norske kunst- og kunstindustrimuseer. In E. Haugdal, H. Olaussen, S. Aamold (Eds.), Berørt av bygninger, Septentrio Academic Publishing, pp. 293-314.
 
Sauge, B. (2015) Arkitektur i perspektiv. Arkitekturtegneren Marianne Brochmann. In Arkitekturårbok 2015, Oslo, pp.102-125.
 
Sauge, B. (2010) The Rhetoric of the Interwar Period: The Competition for a New Office Building for the Norwegian Shipowner’s Association. In M. Rönn et al., (Eds.), The Architectural Competition Research Inquiries and Experiences, Axl Books: Stockholm, pp. 509-531.
 
Sauge, B. (2008) The New Norwegian Opera House by Snøhetta AS. Recording an Electronic Design process. In Architecture and Digital Archives. Architecture in the digital age: A question of memory, Infolio: Gollion, pp. 123-140.
 
Sauge, B. (2003) Arkitekturtegning og kontekst. Arkitektkonkurransen om Norges Rederforbunds kontorbygning, 1930. Unpublished Dr.art. dissertation in Art History, University of Bergen. pdf

Productions

Transcribed Nature, Atelier Oslo. Exhibition The Architecture Machine. The Role of Computers in Architecture, Architekturmuseum der TU München, October 14, 2020 – January 10, 2021

Forest in the House, exhibition at The National Museum, Oslo, Norway. February 24 – March 18, 2018

Published Nov. 11, 2015 8:36 AM - Last modified Dec. 4, 2023 11:11 AM