A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Heritage Sites, in which vignettes of the artist’s personal and familial narratives become a backdrop for examining themes such as global tourism, the notion of universal heritage, and questioning Puerto Rico as a postcolonial place. A two channel short video layers archival imagery with original material to examine the ways Puerto Rico has been represented and misrepresented personally and globally.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Commonwealth’s flagship campus, is home to several Brutalist buildings. Similar to other buildings of this genre, they have gone unrecognized for their importance to the campus and their prominent architectural significance. Additionally, due to the ravages of close to 50 years of exposure coupled with limited maintenance and, in some instances, neglect they are now at a point where restorative maintenance is critical in ensuring their future contribution to the campus. This thesis addresses the importance of creating a comprehensive, long-term plan for these buildings, by first looking to the University’s most prominent, yet neglected building, the Fine Arts Center designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche. The research and design hereafter is an attempt to address the current limitations that exist in relation to the building and to address necessary changes that pertain to the revitalization of the building to meet current University needs. A thorough investigation into best practices for concrete repair, cleaning, and protection are explored, as well as possible design interventions that may be implemented in the future. These design interventions aim to benefit the overall conservation of the building as well as maintain a sensitivity to the architect’s original design intentions. This thesis analyzes past design interventions that have been made, which lacked a sensitivity to the original design, and how this has had a negative impact on the building. Architectural explorations as part of this thesis are used to develop a framework for design thinking and to create a model approach. Investigations into necessary upgrades and alterations to meet current code requirements such as accessibility, fire safety, and energy use are all considered. These explorations are meant to merge into specific guidelines which can then become part of a long-term comprehensive plan. This thesis demonstrates that creating a comprehensive plan with a set of conservation protocols as well as architectural design guidelines will help ensure the building's future on the campus. It also serves as an argument that architectural design considerations play a larger role in the context of conservation. This thesis aims to serve as a case study for other buildings on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, as well as other campuses around the United States and beyond. This study can be seen as a proactive measure to further prevent deferred maintenance and negate the use of unsuitable conservation methods through exigent repairs. It also serves as a means of preventing unsuitable design interventions, which ultimately compromise the building of its significance and authenticity.

Shirley Jackson’s House Trilogy: Domestic Gothic and Postwar Architectural Culture traite de la série de romans gothiques écrits par Shirley Jackson entre 1957 et 1962, de The Sundial à The Haunting of Hill House en passant par We Have Always Lived in the Castle. L’ouvrage situe son rapport au style gothique domestique dans le contexte du discours contemporain sur l’architecture et les formes de l’après-guerre. En particulier, cette étude fait valoir que sa trilogie « House » est une véritable intervention dans l’histoire de l’architecture et le discours domestique, Shirley Jackson utilisant une poétique gothique de l’espace pour évoquer la répétition spectrale des structures de pouvoir et de l’imaginaire idéologique liés à l’architecture. Grâce à son symbolisme architectural approfondi, elle explore la maison américaine et ses racines à travers les mythes et croyances les plus tenaces et les plus discordants du pays, suggérant que la maison elle-même, à la fois structure physique et symbole structurel, est un « fantôme » sociologique qui hante le projet domestique américain. L’auteure nous rappelle que l’architecture et la culture domestiques ne sont jamais neutres et que, bien plus qu’on ne l’a reconnu, sa fiction met en lumière les caractéristiques particulières des formes, des mouvements, des guerres de style et des discours architecturaux ayant activement contribué aux structures culturelles des genres, des classes et des races en Amérique. La carrière de Shirley Jackson, qui s’inscrit dans les deux décennies suivant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, coïncide avec le plus grand boom immobilier de l’histoire américaine, ainsi qu’avec l’une des périodes les plus expérimentales et les plus fébriles de l’architecture américaine. Pourtant, malgré les belles promesses et visions utopiques de cette époque, son architecture et sa culture domestique ont plutôt eu tendance à reproduire les structures de pouvoir oppressives du passé, qu’il s’agisse des normes de genre étouffantes de la maison familiale des années 1950 ou de la ségrégation dans les banlieues. Les maisons de madame Jackson se veulent des allégories gothiques de ce milieu et de sa structure temporelle « fantomatique », marquées par la routine et les revirements angoissants. Chacune des maisons de sa trilogie témoigne de ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « historicité hybride », évoluant à la fois vers le passé et vers l’avenir à travers l’architecture et le discours domestique américains. Dans les manoirs des années glorieuses et les constructions gothiques victoriennes de ses romans, l’auteure satirise l’architecture d’après-guerre et son futur nostalgique, suggérant que les maisons du présent restent hantées par les fantômes du passé. Contrairement à l’architecture de son époque, qui prétendait avoir banni ces fantômes, Shirley Jackson ne cherche pas à échapper aussi facilement aux spectres de l’histoire américaine et de l’assujettissement qui s’y rattache. Plutôt, elle entreprend de les affronter. Pour ce faire, elle pénètre dans la « maison hantée » de l’architecture et de la domesticité américaine : elle l’explore, l’examine, l’interroge et, finalement, la brûle, la met en pièces et la reconstruit. / Shirley Jackson’s House Trilogy: Domestic Gothic and Postwar Architectural Culture considers Shirley Jackson’s suite of gothic novels written between 1957 and 1962, from The Sundial to The Haunting of Hill House to We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It places her treatment of the Domestic Gothic alongside the actual architecture and design discourse of her postwar moment. In particular, it argues that her House Trilogy constitutes an intervention within architectural history and domestic discourse, with Jackson using a gothic poetics of space to suggest the spectral repetition of architecture’s structures of power and ideological imaginary. Through her extensive architectural symbolism, she probes the American house and its roots within the country’s most abiding myths and divisive beliefs, suggesting that the house itself, as both a physical structure and structuring symbol, is a sociological “ghost” that haunts the American domestic project. Jackson reminds us that domestic architecture and culture are never neutral and that, much more so than has been acknowledged, her fiction excavates the specific design features, movements, style wars, and architectural discourses which actively participated in the cultural constructions of gender, class, and race in America. Her writing career — from her first major publication in 1943 to her untimely death in 1965 — coincides with the largest housing boom in American history, as well as one of the most experimental and anxious periods in American architecture. And yet despite the era’s broad promises and utopian visions, its architecture and domestic culture tended to reproduce the oppressive power structures of the past, from the stifling gender norms of the 1950s family home to the segregated suburb. Jackson’s houses are gothic allegories of this milieu and its “ghostly” time structure of uncanny repetition and return. Each of the houses in her trilogy exhibits what might be called a “hybrid historicity,” gesturing at once backwards and forwards through American architecture and domestic discourse. Inside the Gilded Age mansions and Victorian Gothic piles of her novels, Jackson satirizes postwar architecture and its nostalgic futures, suggesting how the houses of the present remain haunted by the ghosts of the past. Unlike the architecture of her time, which claimed to have banished these ghosts, Jackson does not seek to escape the spectres of American history and subjecthood so easily. Instead, she endeavours to face them. In order to do so, she enters the “haunted house” of American architecture and domesticity itself — exploring it, examining it, interrogating it, and, eventually, burning it down, tearing it apart, and remaking it.

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis. For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty monuments of Islamic architecture exhibiting the geometric mode, while the other contains over one hundred records of activity in the sciences and philosophy. From these databases, decorative geometric pattern types were classified and ranked, and scholarly activities were classified. Density maps were developed from these classes and ranks for each century, and were compared in a series of analytical overlay maps. Each map depicts the spatial relationships of the activities in question over a span of three centuries, enabling a spatio-temporal analysis of the connections between disciplines within the context of the broader cultural elements at work. These maps allow for examination of these disciplines in a new way; there has never been a spatial analysis testing the existing hypotheses until now. The density overlay maps show that some of the prevailing hypotheses are partially supported by the data, but the primary hypothesized relationship-that activity in mathematics prompted use of the geometric mode-is not applicable to all regions of the Islamic world during this time period. The spatial analysis exposes the previously overlooked possibility that the geometric mode could have influenced activity in the sciences and philosophy. This study provides tools to better understand the complex relationships among art, science, and philosophy: two spatial databases, a geographic information systems (GIS) model, and resulting analytical overlay maps. The maps produced in this project reveal examples where the quality of contact among disciplines in these very specific times and places is worth examining in greater detail.

The City of Springfield, Massachusetts is one of the largest cities in western Massachusetts, and was established on the Connecticut River for trading and as a fur-collecting post. In 18th and early 19th century, it experienced an industrial boom and became a regional financial center. Springfield became a major railroad center and grew to become the regional center for banking, finance, and courts. However, in mid-19th century Springfield suffered due to the flooding of the Connecticut River and the disinvestment in industry. These resulted in an urban sprawl as people started moving away from heart of the city. Now, once again, the city is trying to revitalize its downtown and neighboring areas to attract people by improving different types of social and cultural amenities. In this thesis, the author studies the relation of the city with its natural asset ‘The Connecticut Riverfront’ which can be a great place to attract people towards the heart of the city. The author has also researched the various reasons causing this natural asset to be underutilized for several years. In addition, the author also explores the possibilities of connecting the Springfield downtown to the riverfront, providing safe and undisturbed access mainly to pedestrians, physically challenged people, and bike riders. Research shows that the existing transportation paths are the major barriers discouraging people from reaching the riverfront. In order to overcome this problem, a design solution is proposed including a safe, pedestrian-friendly link from the downtown area to the riverfront mitigating all the transportation paths such as highway, high speed traffic roads, and railway tracks. The proposed link will give encouragement to local artist and will also aim to boost local businesses by providing sites for museums, exhibitions, art galleries, food courts, and retail shops. This structure will not only improve the accessibility but it will also provide public open spaces where people can gather for various activities and can also enjoy the scenic view of the riverfront. In Addition, local people can also enjoy the water viewing restaurant and bar overlooking Connecticut River. Lastly, this connecting link lays the foundation for further development of the riverfront area due to increased accessibility to this asset.

While documentation of the work of a select group of modernist landscape architects of the mid-twentieth century is available, little is known about the professional contributions of transitional landscape architects active in the period following World War II. Using selected projects framed by existing literature covering contemporary social, economic, political, and artistic influences, this study examines the career of one such transitional figure, Sidney Nichols Shurcliff (1906-1981). Project descriptions and analysis measure the scope of Shurcliff's work and the degree to which he contributed to the discipline and its transition to modernism, thereby augmenting the history of landscape architecture practice.

Gender issues in the landscape, for a long time, have belonged to the fields of social and political science, which remain relatively unfamiliar to both practitioners and students in the discipline of landscape architecture. Previous scholars have put effort into examining questions of gender, culture and landscape in order to clarify the issues that researchers may encounter in today’s field of study. Among these gender classifications, questions in feminist inquiry have provided a historical setting to this study: what are the forms, transitions and design approaches that women employ as creators of the built landscapes? Through reviewing the past literature and surveying today’s practitioners, an understanding emerges of how female landscape designers think about their gender identity as a variable in the design process. In addition, several issues are further identified, including the female awareness of their gender identity in the workplace, types of female work, transitions in design approach since the 1899 American Society of Landscape Architects was founded to the present day, cultural discourse in female landscape forms, and so on. The major goal of this study is not to build a description of history that asks how women may design differently than men, but to reexamine the idea that has made such stereotypes invalid; gender may influence design approaches but not outcome. Furthermore, this study also attempts to identify the potential gender issues in today’s profession, and to provide a viewpoint to landscape designers of any gender: How does our innate gender identity potentially influence design thinking? Finally, as a designer who is drawn to the cultural dimension of landscape architecture, I hope this study will be helpful to landscape professionals in developing a more complex approach and critical eye for looking at designed landscape forms as cultural vehicles for gender construction.

The larger architectural context of cities must be understood in order to effectively design buildings. If a building ignores its surroundings, it will not hold up to time and will adversely affect the city in which it stands. This can be seen in multiple of disarrayed cities and their commercial-driven building inventory. So, what makes a good city stand out, and how can this be applied to buildings? There are the four basic principles designers and planners seemed to have forgotten. The first is the layout of basic city components and their influence on current and future identity. The second is the aesthetic principles of scale and proportion. Choosing appropriate material permanence to your location is also important because it enhances or subtracts from the city’s identity. And finally, the experience of the observer must be impactful. If these principles are applied correctly and harmoniously, they can effectively heal the conflicting issues of transportation, pedestrian access, social venues, historic reverence and much more. But most importantly, they can be applied to buildings. Buildings can individually initiate the healing of an urban fabric if they are cognizant to their surroundings. Therefore in this thesis, I want to apply these four basic principles in the rehabilitation of a malfunctioning junction in my hometown of Helena, Montana. By designing a singular building with a guiding master plan, I hope to stimulate a chain reaction. This transformation would take the current issues and interweave these principles into an effective solution that will not only revitalize the area but also become a tourist destination.

Tellus cinema and café is situated in the heart of Midsommarkransen. It’s been an independent establishment since the 1920’s and is one of very few local cinemas in Stockholm that hasn’t been shut down or taken over by a larger cinema chain. One of Tellus’ many strengths, in comparison to more commercial establishments, is that they can offer a more dynamic and broader repertoire which gives its visitors a sense of experiencing something unique. In this project I would like to redefine the spaces within Tellus, whilst curating the very essence that these rooms possess. I wish to highlight the importance of this cultural establishment and its continued existence as a natural place for people to gather, regardless of their background. I will be studying the cinemas spatial attributes in it’s historical context to see how I can contribute with functional and aesthetical qualities, that diligently enhances the already existing identity of this cinema.

This article consists of a close examination of one of four Late Archaic-era tumular monuments that were excavated in the mid-1950s in the Northern Necropolis of the Pontic Greek settlement of Istros. The exploration of this monument, Tumulus XVII (circa 550-525 BCE), yielded several features that were immediately compared with heroic cremation burials as described in epic poetry (particularly the funeral of Patroklos in Homer’s Iliad). Most striking among these features were the remains of three human sacrificial victims. Despite the early connection drawn with Homeric epic, for the next three decades Tumulus XVII was classified as a non-Greek (Thracian) monument, principally due to the presence of human sacrifice. That is, human sacrifice was regarded as too primitive and thus foreign to the more ‘advanced’ Greek culture. For this reason, the evidence from Istros has not figured prominently in synthetic studies of Greek human sacrifice. Yet, the growing body of research into Greek and indigenous settlements and cemeteries in the western Black Sea, along with the more recent discovery of a bound and ritually decapitated man alongside Pyre A at Orthi Petra (circa 700 BCE; Eleutherna, Crete), has occasioned a reconsideration of the original barbarian characterization of Tumulus XVII. The funerary rituals and resulting tumular monument rather appear to have been developed by an elite subset of the Greek colonial community as a means to distinguish and elevate themselves among the ever-growing population of the city. While epic may have lent general inspiration and significance to the particular rituals performed, a more immediate model for the tumular form may have been taken from the ‘heroon’ (late 7th cent. BCE) in the necropolis of the nearby Greek settlement of Orgame. Although the precise circumstances surrounding the funerary human sacrifices elude us, this short-lived ritual phenomenon seems rather to have been introduced to the region by Greek settlers.