Documenting Twentieth-Century Architecture: Crisis and Opportunity

Architectural records come in many different formats and are used by a variety of users for diverse reasons. The records share, however, some common characteristics--their awkward sizes, their fragile physical form and increasing electronic existence, and their ever increasing volume. Little has been written on the archival view of appraisal and selection criteria for architectural records. With this in mind, and with the belief that a documentation strategy would provide a useful beginning to set appraisal guidelines, the Working Conference on Establishing Principles for the Appraisal and Selection of Architectural Records was held in April 1994 at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. At the conference, archivists, curators, and users gathered to discuss the inherent principles and problems in the appraisal and selection of architectural records, and to propose an agenda for the future analysis of these issues and for the development of a model documentation strategy.