The Institution of the Frame: Relevant Translations and Connections between Physical Spaces and Cinematic Screens

Before the digital age, architectural representation in drawing resulted from two transformational processes: one happened with the author as they developed the drawing from an idea to material. The second happened with the viewer as they interpreted the drawing. In these processes, a particular medium, the frame, raises the status of ideas—the frame functions as an organizing principle that unifies the artist’s intentions and practice. Today digital drawing has mostly replaced annotated drawing, and in the exchange, the benefit of the frame is lost.This qualitative study utilizes a conceptual approach to observe the frame and propose a methodology to bring together the analog/physical frame and the digital/immersive frame. The study enters a dialog with the art theorist Rosalind Krauss who writes about the “Institution of the Frame,” and the art historian Svetlana Alpers who classifies two different modes of representing the world—the Albertian and the Keplerian. Following Krauss’ statement, the study argues that a frame is an act of excision. Inspired by Alpers’ classification, the study focuses on creating two modes of frames, the Alberti and the Brunelleschi. The Alberti mode considers the frame a veil—a two-dimensional surface. Brunelleschi mode observes the frame as a fold—a three-dimensional surface. The study utilizes several analytical methods: descriptive writing, graphic diagramming, and the production of drawings that unite the analog and digital as physical spaces and cinematic screens. These methods develop from the work of Luke Winslow in Frame Analysis, which provides a three-step “meaning-making process” to dissect multiple materials as an interdisciplinary framework. The study examines eight cases studies to identify systematic and generalizable principles, distinguish the relationship between analog and digital frames, and illuminate a strategy to build a delay in the process of thinking about architectural design in the digital age. The conclusion offers an approach for interfacing analog and digital frames in architecture while reflecting on the results, the significance of the interdisciplinary research study, and a position statement—the very essence of the research.