Passing on Construction Knowledge. Manuals and Guides

How were and are planning and building processes visualised? The seminar is dedicated to forms of representation of temporal processes – rather than designed and built architecture – throughout the history of architecture: from representations of construction in a medieval picture bible, Chinese construction manuals, Giovanni Biagio Amico’s 18th century „L’architetto prattico“, illustrated building encyclopaedias from the 19th and 20th centuries, self-build manuals developed for the United Nations University in the 1980s, to magazines for house building. Why and how is construction knowledge communicated and disseminated? Are architects or users addressed and what influence does the target group have on the explanation and presentation of the content? What knowledge of the architectural discipline is passed on to non-specialists?