BRIEF 23
ICOM – International Council on Museums
ICAMT – International Committee for Architecture and Museum Techniques
Chair:
Diana Pardue, Statue of Liberty National Museum, Ellis Island
National Park Service, New York, NY 10004, USA
Tel.
1 212 363 3206 x150
Fax.
1 212 363 6302
Email diana_pardue@nps.gov
Secretary:
Marja-Liisa Pohjanvirta, Finnish Museums Association
Annankatu 16 B 50, FIN-00120 Helsinki, Finland
Tel.
(358 9) 649 001
Fax.
(358 9) 608 330
Email marja-liisa.pohjanvirta@museoliitto.fi
Treasurer:
Toril Mugaas, UiO, Etnografisk Museum
Fredriksgt. 2, N-0164 Oslo 1, Norway
Tel.
(47) 2285 9964
Fax.
(47) 2285 9960
Email t.e.mugaas@ima.uio.no
Editor:
Barry Lord
LORD Cultural Resources
Planning & Management Inc
301 Davenport Rd.
Toronto, ON Canada M5R 1K5
Tel.
1 416 928 9292
Fax.
1 416 928 1774
Email. blord@lord.ca
ICAMT Website
1) http://www.culture.gr/2/21/215/21506/wicamt98.html
2) http://www.icom.org/internationals.html#icamt
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Invitation to ICAMT 2003 Meeting in Latvia and Estonia ................................................................. 2
Report on ICAMT 2002 Meeting in Mexico
by Diana Pardue, ICAMT Chair ................................................................................................... 4
Two Papers from the ICAMT 2002 Conference:
The Dislocation of Contemporary Art
by Professor Milagros Müller .............................................................................................. 5
Mapping Miss Liberty
by Elizabeth I. Louden ........................................................................................................ 7
July 2003
Invitation to the ICAMT 2003 Meeting in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania
Venues:
3-5 September 2003 Latvia (Riga, Ventspils, Tukums)
6-7 September 2003 Estonia (Parnu, Tallin)
8-9 September 2003 Lithuania
Conference Topic: Museum For The Town, Town For The Museum
Most museums are established and developed in
towns or cities. They are developed as part of the
urban fabric, and become part of the town’s
developed cultural life.
5. Architectural heritage and the new features of the
modern city: new museum – new possibilities.
Participants are invited to give papers on these topics
as well as brief reports on recent developments in
their own museums, or news of museums in their
own countries. Paper proposals should be sent to the
contact person by August 1.
The following topics will be discussed through various
programs:
1. The social character of the museum in the
modern town or city – protection of the heritage,
the reflection of contemporary problems, and the
education of society.
2. The Old City as an artefact, the investment of the
museum in the preservation and development of
the historical and cultural milieu.
3. The museum as the face of a town: cooperation
between the museum and the local municipality.
4. The contribution of the museum to the
development of the town’s or city’s cultural life
and the creative activities of its inhabitants.
Possible post-conference tour to Klaipeda (Lithuania)
8 September 2003.
Contact person:
Vita Rinkevicha
The State Authority of Museums
Kalku Street 11a
Tel. + 371 7503870
E-mail: Vita.Rinkevica@km.gov.lv
2
Museum for the Town, Town for the Museum
ICAMT (International Committee for Architecture & Museum Techniques)
Annual Conference, Latvia & Estonia Sept. 3-7, 2003; Lithuania Sept. 9, 2003
Registration Form
Please complete in Block Capitals and return preferably with proof of your payment to
ICAMT, State Authority on Museums
Kaļķu Str.11a, Riga LV 1050, Latvia
tel: + 371 7503870 fax: +371 7228 083
e-mail: Vita.Rinkevica@km.gov.lv
Fee to be sent: Account no: LATVIJAS MUZEJU ASOCIACIJA, REG.Nr.40008003240
LUB RIDZENES FILIALE UNLALV2X
konts 02-400700407, 310101900
Title/Titre académique/Titulo
Surname/Nom de famille/Appelido
Position/Position/Posición
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Telephone/Téléphone/Telefono
Fax/Telecopie/Telecopia
Email
Please indicate special dietary requirement, if any (e.g. vegetarian)
REGISTRATION FEES
The registration fees include morning and afternoon tea/coffee, lunch, registration materials, opening reception and
farewell dinner, bus transport in Latvia and Estonia during the conference, a one-day trip to Tukums, one-day trip to
Ventspils and two-days trip to Tallinn. They are:
288 Euro
315 Euro
for payments made before/pour paiement avant le/sí Vd. paga antes del 31.07.2003
for payments made between/pour paiement éxecuté entre le/sí Vd. paga entre le
01.08.2003 and/et le/y el 31. 08. 2003
HOTEL RESERVATIONS
All bookings are subject to availability and the bill will have to be settled directly with the hotel on departure. The
hotel charge is: 50-70 euro per person per day single room, 60-85 euro double room.
Hotel reservation - International travel agency PEGASUS
tel/fax: +371 7 222 221, + 371 7 216 736, e-mail: anita@pegasus.lv
Please reserve my accommodation as follows:

A/single
Arrival date:

I would like to share the room with:
B/double room
Departure date:
Accompanying person(s):
Signature:
/ 2003
3
Report from Mexico City ICAMT 2002 Meeting
by Diana Pardue, Chair, ICAMT
Claudia Barron’s topic was new approaches to the
use of exhibition space, specifically developing
hyper-textural spaces. Taide Buenfil talked about
accessibility in public spaces, describing the National
Commission created by Mexico’s President Fox and
the booklet of information on various disabilities and
specifications created to move toward the universal
use of space by everyone. Jorge Agostoni was the
next speaker and his topic was “Exhibition Design: an
open field for architects”. He discussed the amount of
intervention needed to convert an historic building
into exhibit space and described what had been done
at Mexico’s National Museum of Art. Elizabeth
Louden, Professor of Architecture, Texas Tech
University, USA gave a paper (published in this issue
of brief) on the digital documentation of the Statue of
Liberty to create accurate three-dimensional
drawings and models. The last speaker was Carlos
Flores Marini, President of ICOMOS in Mexico. He
presented an overview of ICOMOS and its programs,
highlighting various ICOMOS preservation projects in
the Caribbean. After a lunch that included traditional
dishes such as baked ants, the group returned to the
museum for a tour of the art exhibits. The next stop
was a quick visit to the National Museum of
Architecture to see the murals by Siqueiros.
The 2002 meeting of ICAMT took place in Mexico
City, 28-31 October. The focus of this meeting was
museum architecture and design of alternative
spaces. The National University, School of
Architecture, organized the meeting and architecture
students attended many of the sessions.
On Monday the conference began at the Faculty of
Architecture in University City with registration and a
very interesting tour of University City, focusing on
the variety of architecture and landscapes that have
been developed over time. One of the highlights was
observing the very creative altars being created by
the students on the grassy mall for All Saints Day.
Tuesday the meeting began in the Enrique del Moral
Auditorium of the Faculty of Architecture with a
keynote address by Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon on
museums for the third millennium. The address
generated a very interesting discussion by both the
architecture students and ICAMT members. The
group traveled to the National Museum of
Anthropology for lunch. After lunch, Jose Enrique
Ortiz Lanz, National Coordinator of Museums, gave
the group an overview of the history of this National
Museum. The museum was built in the 1960s, the
first building built exclusively as a museum in Mexico.
Its exhibits are divided into the various regions of
Mexico. The building is now being renovated and the
exhibits updated. Jose Enrique took the group on a
tour of the building, including areas not open to the
public where exhibits were being remodeled and
updated. The group was able to ask questions about
construction and offer suggestions on exhibit
techniques relating to lighting and display.
Thursday the meeting began in the Centro Cultural
de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in
University City with the theme, “Design of alternative
exhibition spaces”. Julieta Fierro, director of the
university’s Science Diffusion Division, talked about
the role of the designer in alternative exhibition
spaces such as science museums. Several ICAMT
members presented papers relating to the day’s
theme. Milagros Mueller, Architect, University of
Venezuela, presented a very thought-provoking
paper, “The Dislocation of Contemporary Art”, which
is published in this issue of brief. Sophia Xenopoulou,
Greece, talked about creating a Museum of Fishery
in an old building. Ronnie Fookes, Project Manager,
Public Spaces in the Victoria Museum in Melbourne,
Australia spoke about the challenges of creating a
museum in an existing building. The group was given
a complete tour of the science museum and then
went for another traditional lunch. The day ended
with the Fiesta Mexicana at the National Museum of
Cultures, including a live band playing traditional
music from the various regions of Mexico and some
traditional dancing by members of the group.
The next day’s meeting was held at the National
Museum of Art with the theme “Museum Planning
and Museum Architecture”. The building was built in
the 19th century and once housed the Department of
Communications. It was later redesigned and
adapted as an art museum, containing an overview of
Mexican art. Alfonso Govela was the planner who
developed the master plan and implemented this
conversion. He gave the first presentation and
described this conversion process, the challenges,
eventual solutions and the contradictions between
museums and architecture. The next two speakers
talked about different approaches to museum spaces.
4
The next day, several ICAMT members organized a
tour outside of Mexico City to see some of the
ancient monuments in the area, experiencing yet
another type of architecture now used as public
space.
The ICAMT group in Mexico City thanks the various
institutions that organized and sponsored this
meeting, particularly the Faculty of Architecture of the
National University. The architecture students who
attended many of the sessions were delightful and
added to the discussions each day. Yani Herriman
created an interesting and fruitful program that
resulted in a well-balanced meeting of presentations
and museum tours. Our thanks to her and all of her
colleagues in Mexico for a memorable conference.
The Dislocation of Contemporary Art
A paper presented at the ICAMT 2002 Meeting in Mexico
by Prof. Milagros Müller
The concepts of absence of topography [atopía] and
multiplicity or diversity of topographies [heterotopía],
could
include
spaces
without
topography,
simultaneity of spaces, fragmentation, juxtaposition,
differentiation,
heterogeneity,
discontinuity,
simulation,
pastiche,
bricolage,
displacement,
deterritorialization or dematerialization of spaces.
These are some of the concepts that are addressed
today in the presentation of artistic creations such as
ephemeral art, conceptual art, body art, food art,
earth art, installations, performances, happenings,
action painting and cyber art among others.
linked with the text showed us the homicide of John.
F. Kennedy, the attempted murder of Pope John Paul
II, and the attempted coup against Hugo Chávez,
President of Venezuela. Behind Mary Stuart two
contemporary dancers dramatized her secret loves,
while a baritone intoned arias of the opera, clothed as
a woman. The other characters went from one palace
to the other, displaced by only a few meters in the
set, so that the intrigues of the advisers and soldiers
they of the Queen could be seen in parallel to the rest
of the action.
In this theatrical piece, what is the space of
representation and who is represented? The space
suggested by the author or the “dramatic space” was
represented by the set, but the insertion of spaces on
the screen and monitors results in a transformation, a
conversion into a different space and time that is
plural, referring to multiple events occurring in various
times, thus breaking with Aristotelian unity of action.
To this was added the destabilization caused by the
music and sounds, which produced new and different
images, as well as the personal references of each
spectator.
It is necessary that architectural inquiry dare to return
to its origins in order to find the visual vocabulary that
is capable of generating manifestations that utilize
codes transpositioned from the theater to the dance,
to video or to the plastic arts, and vice versa. This
conversion, with the inclusion of the mass media, has
brought about a “hybridization of the arts” to utilize a
term of Néstor García Canclini.
Such hybridization we could perceive clearly in the
production of Mary Stuart, presented in Caracas
towards the end of 1998, in which could be seen the
juxtaposition of spaces and time, as well as the
conversion of codes among artistic manifestations
that are usually separate. Mary and Elizabeth,
dressed in period costume, were frozen in ‘stop
action’, set in the proscenium, immobile during the
two hours of the presentation, with monologues that
alternated in a kind of dialogue of the deaf, each
speaking from her own palace. While Elizabeth
planned the murder of her cousin, in the medium of
the cyclorama on a giant screen videos indirectly
Around the notion of “limited experience” and under
the sign of transgression, the creative game of this
setting produced a space of excess and exception,
praxis and uncertainty. In the transitional paradigm of
modernism to postmodernism, time accelerates and
space is immaterial; the fiction that they present is
projected as more real than concrete reality. The
signs of the fragmentation of space and time break
relations with the ‘purity’ of the genders, and impose
multiplicity and collage.
5
In the plastic arts performances and installations
combine traditional materials with those coming from
the cyber cultural without difficulty. An art surges from
this multimedia mode, that places the culture that the
current society produces next to the fragments of
past cultures.
The space of representation in contemporary
Venezuelan art seen in works of theater, musical
shows, dance, dance theater, performances and art
conceptual art exhibitions in theaters, museums,
galleries and non-conventional spaces in Caracas,
during the period 1998-2002 provide evidence of this
displacement. This displacement proposes, from the
point of view of an architectural answer to the
problem of the space of representation, the quest for
constructive non-conventional systems in search of
an ephemeral architecture, or, as Fernando Castro
Flórez would say, of "architectural ready-mades,"
capable of adapting to the change in the modes of
production in the swamp of the mass media.
We are confronted with a new grammar that provides
a whole new rationalization and another artistic
sensibility. The proportions and categories that we
were accustomed to identify with have been
transformed. Society is destabilized by the
acceleration of time without any topography of space
that is cybernetic, by the instantaneity and
simultaneity of events, and by art as the medium to
express that sensation. History, formerly situated in
the category of time, has been dislocated and
cartography, the representation of space, has
fragmented.
The challenge that is expounded is the
reconsideration of any specific architecture of the
present day without falling into the destruction of
itself. It is a search for the manner of giving answers
to the content of contemporary art by means of
containers with appropriate meaning. The new art
requires an incompatible and incomparable space
with
the
existent,
an
alternative
space,
pluridimensional, eidetic and representational.
Perhaps the new art is not searching for an
appropriate space, but appropriates all spaces,
including the virtual, the cyberspace and the
imaginary.
Faced with this new conception of the arts, the space
of representation in the museum and the theater has
been displaced. The single stage doesn't suffice for
the representation of simultaneous realities, in
diverse spaces and virtual times, juxtaposed to evoke
a multiplicity of resources. The place of the
represented action, the capacity of the projection on
the monitor, the memories of people as they listen to
the music and the sounds, and the space of
representation are all absorbed and reflected by the
lens of the camera, and reinterpreted for sensual
perception of the spectator.
It may be a question, then, of an auto-reflexive
architecture, inscribed in the new times, linked to a
re-definition of feeling and, starting from that
condition, an interdisciplinary gestation of space for
contemporary art -- an architecture that puts an
indefinite “between” that allows us to listen and be
listened to. The “space that goes surging between
the anomalies” goes beyond architectural, urbanistic,
eidetic or mass media space. It is an alternative
space, different, with dimensions still unknown
completely.
The composition of the work of art like the
representation of space transforms the feeling of the
theatrical building and the museum. We see libraries,
galleries, train stations, restaurants, squares, lakes,
parks and any public spaces as if they could be
converted into spaces of representation, the certain
potential of the no-places. Any place can be
converted by “art work” into an intimate stage where
an individual experience is shared and irrepeatable.
The space of representation is no longer a stable
space, homogeneous, three-dimensional, continuous,
objective and positional, but must be converted into a
space of more than three dimensions, an interactive
space,
multiple,
eidetic,
heterogeneous,
discontinuous and subjective. Essence, form, and
idea of a space that is heterotopographical and at the
same time atopographical, surges in the moment of
the intelligible apprehension of a work of art: the
“eidos”, something at the same time real and
conceptual.
The space of representation of contemporary art
seems to be born in the crossroads of different
devices of time, the virtual juxtaposition of space and
time by means of videos, movies, dance, music,
sounds and illumination. This incorporates the work’s
diverse micro universe in the context of a
schizophrenian space storm that subjects the
spectator to an experience of momentary
desublimation, that is appropriate to the internal
spaces of the work, in order to put the spectators in
direct relationship with those presented in the diverse
lines of communication or “tracks”.
6
Mapping Miss Liberty
by Elizabeth I. Louden
A Monumental Task
The Statue of Liberty in New York harbor is a unique
and inspirational design in countless ways. For nearly
120 years, her flaming torch has welcomed millions
of people to the United States and has stood as a
beacon of the ideals of freedom and liberty.
Accomplishing the task was laden with challenges.
The working environment itself presented myriad
difficulties. The positions from which we could collect
data on this small island were very limited, crowds of
tourists were present almost continuously during our
work, we had to comply with stringent security and
safety measures, not to mention the extraordinarily
high visibility of the project.
A World Heritage Site since
1984, this one of a kind, 305foot high, 225-ton statue is
exceptional in its design, as
well as in the method of
reproducing that design. For
instance, rather than being
built from drawings, she was
constructed based on multiple
scaled models. Consequently - though there are countless
photographs of Lady Liberty -no drawings exists that record the depth of the folds
in her hammered-copper gown, the curves of her
fingers, or the width of her eyes.
The required deliverables of the project were precise
drawings of every feature and fold in the garments of
the statue to meet or exceed HABS standards for
accuracy -- a horizontal and vertical recording at
0.375 inch.
In 2001, the National Park Service and the Historic
American Buildings Survey set out to rectify this
constraint by creating architectural drawings of the
statue's exterior. Such scaled drawings will be used
to monitor and preserve the statue and will eventually
become part of a small-scale GIS that will enhance
maintenance and management of the landmark
structure.
Based on our historic preservation program and
measured drawing expertise, NPS contacted the
Texas Tech University College of Architecture and
requested that we demonstrate the feasibility of using
3D laser scanning technologies to measure and
record every centimeter of the statue's exterior
surface. In response, a university team including
professors John P. White, director of the historic
preservation program, Glenn E. Hill, director of the
visualization program, and myself initiated the Digital
Statue of Liberty project and set out to explore the
abilities of a laser scanner to record nonlinear
geometries at a monumental scale, as well as to
investigate the data conversion requirements to
complete the work.
Tale of A National Treasure
7
In March 2001, a university team traveled to Liberty
Island to test the scanning system and find solutions
to the logistical challenges. We tested the scanner
only on the statue, not on the pedestal or the fort.
Meanwhile, members of the HABS team surveyed
the location of registration targets using a
reflectorless total station. These targets would later
help us tie scans together with the required accuracy,
as well as verify the accuracy of the laser scans.
First, we placed 37 targets around the statue,
including the torch, crown, and pedestal. The least
invasive way to attach the flat targets to the metal
surfaces turned out to be standard duct tape. With
the assistance of Liberty Island National Park Service
personnel, the team climbed first to the observation
deck atop the promenade, placed the targets on the
crenellation, then climbed to the crown where small
windows open just enough to reach out and place
targets on the crown. The last task would take us
climbing a canted ladder up through Miss Liberty's
arm to reach the small balcony surrounding the torch.
What a view we had at dawn -- looking back at
Manhattan where the World Trade Center towers
stood. Just four weeks later, they were gone.
Laser scans of Statue of Liberty’s Face
Because we surveyed the precise location of these
targets to within one-tenth of an inch using a
reflectorless total station, these points would provide
overlapping survey information to connect the
separate scans in the 3D modeling process. To
minimize the angle of the laser beam when recording
the upper-most areas of the statue within the 40
degree cone of vision, we positioned the scanner
head at the apex of each point on the promenade
level atop the Fort Wood Visitor Center.
The initial reconnaissance of the work site helped us
determine the optimal scanning platform. The height
of the statue itself is 151 feet and 1 inch from the
soles of her feet to the tip of the torch. To acquire
accurate data, the scanner required the stable
surface of the Fort Wood promenade level, which
meant that the laser pulse had to be sent an overall
vertical distance of 305 feet and 1 inch including the
statue and the pedestal. The actual distance the
beam traveled would be more than 400 feet. We also
determined that the job would require us to scan from
more than a dozen different positions to assure
adequate overlap of data. After two months of
procedure planning, we were ready to survey the
monument.
We mounted the 45-pound scanner on its tripod and
connected it to a laptop computer. The computer
enabled us to operate the scanner and immediately
view the point clouds throughout the process. The
scanner's optics include dual mirrors controlled by
random access timing devices. A metal housing and
precision glass lens shield the internal mechanisms.
The video targeting supports a 480 3 480 color
resolution. The laser type is a green, pulsed,
proprietary microchip that is a safety Class II (ref.
CFR 1040) eye-safe -- except in the event of direct,
long-term exposure.
Ground control
In August 2001, we traveled to Liberty Island and
began the job of recording the colossus. Two College
of Architecture students participated in the scanning - Jared Wright, a graduate student, and Jon Gamel,
an undergraduate. Karen Hughes, a heritage
management associate, volunteered her assistance
on the task.
With the targets set
and surveyed and the
laser positioned, we
initiated the scan.
Each scan went from
head to toe, capturing
data at 0.375-inch
resolution in grids of
1,000 3 1,000 data
points. After each
scan, we moved the
scanner to the next
location, set it up,
and started to scan.
During our initial rendering experiments, we surface
mapped and modeled the elevations we had collected. In
the blue image (far right), the degree of error is indicated
by a colour bar, with red indicating the greatest error and
dark blue indicating the lowest
8
Team nember John Gamel
prepares the laser scanner.
With the Twin Towers at
her back, author Elizabeth
Louden sets up to begin
a scan.
For the next four days, we
scanned in two shifts for
14 hours each day,
making 43 scans from 13
different positions around
the statue's base. In those
four days, we had scanned
more than 200 million data
points, enough to generate
a 3D computer model of
the statue as well as twodimensional architectural
drawings.
All along, Jared kept a work log and developed a
Web site for the project.
The next step was to convert the point cloud into a
surface-mapped model. From tests of various
software, we identified a program that could not only
generate a 3D model quickly and accurately by
matching patches of surface geometries instead of
relying on targets, but could also create the surface
mapping needed to generate the final architectural
elevation drawings for HABS.
Creating polymesh. The mapping basically
connects the points and creates triangles, called a
polymesh. Then the area between the triangles is
filled. From the polymesh, the software creates a
NURBS surface that can then be smoothed by
eliminating errant data.
Interestingly, during the
survey, we successfully recorded information at a
range of 100 meters, more than twice the distance
publicized by the manufacturer. Though the
horizontal and vertical resolution was set at 0.375
inch, the overlapping data brought the final 3D model
average accumulated measurements to a finer detail
of 0.25 inch required by HABS and Secretary of the
Interior Standards.
Delivering Digital Liberty
We completed our point cloud processing in February
2002, then spent the next several months testing
software and determining output techniques.
The data collection resulted in approximately 70
percent coverage of the exterior surfaces. Areas that
could not be seen by the scanner were not recorded.
This included regions on the top of the head and
torch as well as some areas around the foot of the
statue.
The Digital Statue of Liberty project now stands ready
for the final rendering and submission to NPS. The
submission will include line drawings constructed at
1-foot increments from sections of the 3D model.
Theoretically, these horizontal sections could be
delivered at smaller increments because the data
points are available at such a great level of detail. We
will also supply elevation data rendered on the
computer with as much data as are available.
With the onsite work done, we returned to Texas
Tech University in Lubbock to process the point cloud
data.
The Texas Connection
Our work on the project is still not complete.
Currently, we are seeking funding to continue
subsequent phases of the documentation. This
includes capturing information at the base for areas
that could not be seen by the scanner. The remaining
data will be collected using helicopters and
photogrammetry or remote controlled scanning to
collect measurements at the top of the statue's head
and torch. We will then integrate these data with our
original information.
Upon arriving back to the Architecture Research
Center at Texas Tech University, Professor Hill and
graduate student Jared Wright began to manipulate
the point cloud data. It soon became apparent that
we did not have enough computing power.
Initial attempts at putting all of the scans into one
model were unsuccessful, and the computer
frequently crashed or the registration failed.
Eventually, Jared was able to isolate the problem -movement of the arm and torch were causing too
great of an error for successful target registration. By
eliminating the torch targets from the combination of
individual scans, the laser scanning software was
able to complete the entire 3D model. Nevertheless,
to work with the data, we had to order a computer
with dual 1.8-GHz processors, a 1-GB RDRAM video
card, and two 80-GB hard drives.
9