This three-day academic event investigates unarchiving as an operative concept, integrating practice-based approaches with theoretical inquiry and critical reflection. In collaboration with the gta archiv, day one "Unarchiving as Practice" is a hands-on workshop, dedicated to exploring how overlooked, buried, or scattered traces of architectural evidence can be critically revisited through collective reading and visual speculation. Day two "Unarchiving as Methodology" and day three "Confronting Infrastructures of Exclusion" will feature a symposium with keynote lectures, paper presentations, and roundtable sessions. These sessions will explore the theoretical, ethical, and political dimensions of unarchiving as a critical methodology that re-shapes both architectural practice and the power structures governing access and visibility in the production of architectural knowledge.

U N A R C H I V I N G A S P R A C T I C E

In collaboration with the gta Archive, Collecting Otherwise, and Women Writing Architecture, the Day 1 workshop will critically investigate the gta archive's collections. We will examine how institutional classificatory systems have dispersed, buried, or rendered materials invisible. Instead of simple disclosure, we treat digital restitution as a layered, ongoing process requiring critical engagement, epistemic responsibility, and creative intervention.

–, HIL E 67

Welcome (Coffee, Tea + Snacks)

Mariam Issoufou Dr. Sara Frikech Dr. Martina Diaz Rami Msallam

–, HIL E 67

Session I

Practices and Methods Setareh Noorani, Delany Boutkan, Stefanie Korrel (Collecting Otherwise) Emilie Appercé (Women Writing Architecture) Robin Coenen + Leonard Puhl (Visual Intelligence) Q&A

–

Break

–, HIL E 67

gta Archiv Introduction

Irina Davidovici (Director)

–, gta Archiv

Session II

Working with Archival Materials Introduction by Almut Grunewald

–

Lunch Break

–, gta Archiv

Session III

Context and Content Analysis Introduction by Sabine Sträuli

–

Break

–

Reflections and Apéro

U N A R C H I V I N G AS M E T H O D O L O G Y

On the first day of the symposium, we will explore unarchiving not just as a technical or digital task, but as a conceptual approach with theoretical, ethical and political implications. We will explore how archival practices shape the writing, teaching and creation of architecture, and consider the responsibilities involved in engaging with colonial-era collections today.

–, HIL E 71.1

Welcome (Coffee, Tea + Snacks)

–, HIL E71.1

Introduction

Mariam Issoufou (Chair of Architecture Heritage and Sustainability, ETH Zürich)

–, HIL E 71.1

Roundtable I

Unarchiving as Restitution: Writing Architectural Heritage Through Archival Fragments This session considers how engaging with scattered and overlooked archival fragments can serve as a means of rewriting architectural heritage. It foregrounds restitution as a process of reconstructing histories, reconnecting heritage, and rethinking ownership over narratives. The speakers will share perspectives on how fragmented records can be mobilised to critically expand architectural historiography.

–

Lunch Break

–, HIL E 71.1

Roundtable II

Unarchiving the Coloniality of Archives: Ethics, Absence, and the Persistence of Extractive Logics Here we turn to the material and administrative structures of the archive itself. This session addresses how classification systems, silences, and epistemic frameworks rooted in colonial extraction continue to shape archival holdings and access today. It probes the ethical dilemmas of working with collections that are both rich in potential knowledge and marked by violence, raising questions about complicity, positionality, and responsibility in archival research.

–

Closing Reflections and Remarks

–

Apéro Riche

–, Migros Museum Zürich

Optional Visit: Disobedience Archive

Non-compulsory visit of the Migros Museum Exhibition Disobedience Archive: Canopy for Broken Time in dialogue with Raqs Media Collective

C O N F R O N T I N G I N F R A S T R U C T U R E S O F E X C L U S I O N

The last day shifts focus to systems and practices that sustain or contest exclusion in the archive. Through discussions on power, technology, and non-institutional practices, we examine how archives both physical and digital are embedded in broader infrastructures that govern access, visibility, and the production of knowledge.

–

Welcome (Coffee, Tea + Snacks)

–, HIL E 71.1

Keynote Lecture II

From Unarchiving to Anarchiving, or What we should not learn from Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies Wayne Modest (Wereldmuseum/RCMC)

–, HIL E 71.1

Roundtable III

Unarchiving Systems of Power, Archives, Technologies, and Infrastructures of Exclusion This session explores how archival technologies, platforms, and institutional infrastructures can perpetuate or challenge systems of exclusion. Speakers will discuss the role of metadata, digital regimes, and ownership structures, as well as the geopolitics of archival labour, authorship, and data sovereignty.

–

Lunch Break

–

Coffee Break

–, HIL E 71.1

Roundtable IV

Unarchiving from Below: Practices Beyond Institutional Frameworks Closing the symposium, this session looks at counter-archival strategies and practices that operate outside, or in friction with, formal institutions. From activist mappings to collective memory projects, it examines how communities and interdisciplinary groups reclaim agency and how we can learn from them in telling architectural and spatial histories that have long remained unwritten.

–

Closing Reflections and Remarks

–

Apéro with Snacks