Architecture Commons^™

The End Of Everything: The Physical And Figurative Impacts Of Landscape On American Ideology, Wyatt Alger

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Rendering The Cyberfag: An Examination On The Spatial Sociology Of Grindr, Matthew Paul Gershovich

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Rendering the Cyberfag: An Examination on the Spatial Sociology of Grindr attempts to dissect, theorize, and expose the current dismality of gay existence and space in direct correlation with the inception of the digital realm. The investigation begins by establishing a lexicon of socio-spatial attributes that aim to establish the reader within a basis of the spatial vulnerabilities attached with queer identities. A contextualizing chronology of aspects of queer history is presented; beginning with the act of cruising, and its subsequent demise during the AIDS epidemic. In parallel, the thesis follows the creation of the internet, which birthed gay anonymous …

The Ephemerality Of Building: A Case Study Of Material Life And Reuse, John Brewster Loud

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Western colonialist architecture has a long and complicated relationship with its materiality and the surrounding ecosystem. For the past millennia, buildings and structures have permanently altered the landscape. These changes are not always bad. An ecosystem is constantly evolving, and sometimes these changes allow for growth and metamorphosis. In other cases, however, these colonialist structures can bring about ecosystem destruction and deterioration over time. Materiality and change are approached in this project as they relate to architecture. In Western architecture, materials are almost always new and standardized and have exact lengths and widths that can be ordered to certain dimensions. …

“A Certain Brauch:” German-Georgian Palatine And Rhenish Immigrant Houses In Columbia County, New York And Their Vernacular Architectural Roots, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this archaeological and architectural survey of 18th Century Palatine and Rhenish immigrant houses in New York's Hudson Valley, specifically in Columbia County, I track the development of three houses from their earliest vernacular forms to those touched by the Georgian influence. The Georgian worldview, stemming from European Enlightenment ideals, began permeating colonial American society in the 18th Century. It's influence first began to touch the wealthy and elite most connected with mother Europe, and then trickled into more common society. I chronicle and analyze Germantown, NY's Reformed Sanctity Church Parsonage, Germantown, NY's Simeon Rockefeller House, and Clermont, NY's "Stone …

Eyes On The Street: Racialized Bodies And Surveillance In Urban Space, Hana Parker Soule

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Public Bathroom: Tracing A History Of Architectural Symbolism And Social Control, Mayim Frieden

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Through a cross-disciplinary analysis of New York City's urban, architectural and infrastructural histories, this thesis explores the various sociocultural beliefs, dynamics and tensions that led to the architectural typology of the public bathroom. In turn, the controversies often associated with public bathrooms are contextualized, and the demarcating and influential capabilities of architecture are made apparent. This work spans from the 19th century and into the 2010s, demonstrating how architectural and urban design and planning can contain and uphold determinations made hundreds of years prior.

Les Six Continents: An Exploration Of Political Visual Rhetoric In Public Sculpture, Olivia Liu Guillotin

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Les six continents series stands as remnants of the 1878 Exposition Universelle and as a visual marker of the cultural, social, and economic culture of the time period. The series, serving as public art, continues to inform and participate in its environment and space, as it is on display by the entrance of the Musée d’Orsay today. Personified representations of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania as allegorical female figures, the series offers insight into the colonial world where it emerged, and how its impact has visually been ingrained in contemporary society. By using these six statues …

Audience Patina: An Enmeshment Of Architecture And Theater, Alison R. Kane

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This senior project entitled Audience Patina: An Enmeshment of Architecture and Theater explores the interconnections and juxtapositions between environmental topographies, liminal space, and imaginary dreamscapes. The project consists of interdisciplinary research used to create a large-scale installation piece, as well as the direction of the play The Stars Come Out at Night. This installation was created in conversation with the play, which was written by fellow theater department senior, Emily Kaufman-Bell. The play is the essential work that briefed the design around a dreamlike environmental imagery. The design and research explore how space and bodies communicate with each other …

Are We Home?, Blake Donald Sylvester

Senior Projects Spring 2022

I’ve never been comfortable, and I don’t expect to be. There’s a good possibility that I don’t want to be. During my time of growing and trying to consider myself an artist, comfort has never been present. When I’m comfortable I'm stable, and when I’m stable I'm stationary. I don’t want to be stationary. Being comfortable in a place often means remaining there. I’m scared of not moving and I’m scared of staying in a place that I know. I don’t want to be within walls and structures that don’t provide me with comfort, and yet I’m uncomfortable being comfortable. …

9/11: News Media As Prism, Luka L. Murro

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Towards A Revised Approach To Designing From The Outside In: Contextualizing The Preliminary Proposal For The Fourth Addition To Bard College Library, Aidan Galloway

Senior Projects Fall 2022

Before creating the new, architects are faced with the existing. An enormous oak tree might be within the bounds of the site you’ve been hired to build a house on. Do you cut it down, or leave it? A tall brick building might be next door. Do you imitate its scale, its materiality, its style, or do you create something that looks entirely different?

These kinds of questions, while perhaps always fundamental to architecture, were especially pertinent in mid-to-late-twentieth century debates surrounding “context” as architects like Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown challenged the conventions of “orthodox” Modern architecture. “Frank …

Verify In Field, Zohar Propp-Hurwitz

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

A Rejection Of Nature? Or The Natural World? An Objectless Inquiry Into The Writings Of Kazimir Malevich, Aidan Edward Galloway

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Time Is A Construct(Ion): Heritage And Becoming In Quito's Historic District, Samuel Abate

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Hut Annandale: Humblest Dwelling, Ruiqi Zhu

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Lots of us have a dream deep down in the heart: to get away from the congested cities and live in a hut in nature. French port Jean Wahl once wrote: The frothing of the hedges I keep deep inside me. In my project, he explored this dream and constructed a group of architectural structures by hand for those potential hermits. Studying at Bard College, I have found this region is a place with a great hermit culture. With the picturesque scene of nature and the location near the New York Metropolitan area, here the mid-Hudson Valley has attracted lots …

Some Notes On Congruency, Ryan J. Rusiecki

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Some Notes on Congruency is an examination of the seemingly arbitrary methods in which the built environment facilitates order among its inhabitants (eg., parking lot striping, roadway signs). Asphalt fissures observed at the main intersection in Red Hook, NY were used as a starting off point for making the photographs contained within this book. A lens with a focal length that closely resembles the range of human vision was used to communicate the experience of discovering fissures from my perspective as a pedestrian and motorist. I was most captivated by temporal, subtle fissures, such as the replanting of flower beds …

Cedar Hill: A Case Study In Preservation And Education In A Digital World, Lin Barnett

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Visit Cedar Hill (now Annandale-on-Hudson) as it stood over a century ago, reconstructed in virtual reality. This interactive project retells an important aspect of Hudson Valley History, its mill communities, which do not get preserved in the archeological record and are not as closely maintained as its neighboring communities of Bard College and Montgomery Place. The project analyzes the structures' changing purposes, as well as their changing architectural qualities, to trace the story of the hamlet's decline.

It’S Garfield’S World, We Just Live In It: An Exploration Of Garfield The Cat As Icon, Money Maker, And Beast, Iris B. Engel

Senior Projects Fall 2019

No newspaper comic character enjoys a larger international audience than Garfield. While newspaper comics have been infiltrating the homes of readers in the United States since the 1880s, Garfield has made more of an impact than any other. Brought into existence by Jim Davis in Muncie, Indiana in 1978, Garfield has now gone world-wide. Breaking Guinness world records for most syndicated newspaper comic strip, Garfield has made over 800 million dollars in comic sales alone, making it the largest grossing newspaper comic strip to date. Recognized globally, Garfield is an international icon. Despite these laudations, there has never been an …

From The Church Of Disco To Waterfront Ruins: An Analysis Of Gay Space, Liam Nolan

Senior Projects Spring 2019

My senior thesis is an analysis of gay space from the late 1970s to 1980s New York, and I’m questioning how themes of private vs. public, accessibility, race, and economic status dictated where one searched for gay self-expression and community in the built environment. In order to understand how queer spaces functioned architecturally and socially, I’ve chosen to research two opposites: The Saint and the west side piers. The former was a private club in New York City from 1980-1988 and was considered to be the “Vatican of Disco” with a planetarium that could hold over a thousand men, two …

Zhang Jinqiu's Museums In Xi'an: Interpreting The City's National And Cultural Identity Through The Design Of Contemporary Museum Architecture, Zijiao Li

Senior Projects Fall 2019

It took extra time for Xi’an to arrange and build its subway system, as it was interrupted by numbers of ancient sites and tombs underground. The government typically replaced the old with the new. It was not easy to commodify a ruined palace from the Han dynasty, rather than a brand-new building. Contradictorily, under the fast transitioning of architecture, those new creations barely embrace the soft power that is imperative for the city. Nevertheless, the best remediation is to build a museum that holds the relics, represents history, and has a stylish look. Additionally, the museum plays a crucial role …

A Hundred Houses: Pauline Leader And The Spatial Poetics Of Disability, Carl Robert Nelson

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Victorious Athena: The Cult And The Temple Of Athena Nike, Brynlie-Sage Johnston

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Remembering Violent Pasts In Argentina And Chile: An Exploration Of Diverging Memorial Landscapes, Zara Ferro

Senior Projects Spring 2018

What can explain Argentina and Chile’s post-dictatorial divergence in modes of memorializing violent pasts, considering they underwent similar brutal dictatorships and essentially simultaneous transitions to democracy? While in Argentina, public memorials convey a sense of retribution toward the old regime; in Chile, these memorials emphasize reconciliation and a desire to move on from past violence. Looking beyond differences in their democratic transitions and the state of their economies pre- and post-dictatorship, this project identifies activism of human rights organizations as the primary variable for understanding different textures in the politics of memorializing in Argentina and Chile. In Argentina, the politics …

How To Dredge A Lake, Ana I. Bauer

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

The Architecture Of Confinement: An Exploration Of Spatial Boundaries In Wright, Poe, And Foucault, Samantha Feig

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

The [E]Motionless Body No Longer: Tracing The Historical Intersections Of Mental Illness And Movement In The American Asylum, Holly Adele Herzfeld

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Bard College Bell Tower Architectural Lighting Project, David Douglas John Bull

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The Bard Bell Tower is located in front of the Fisher Studio Arts Building, between the Bertelsmann Campus Center and the Anna Jones Memorial Garden. Until recently, the tower structure, built by students in the spring and summer of 1965, existed in a slow state of decay due to natural aging and disuse. It is an important piece of Bard’s history that has been ignored in recent years, which is something I set out to change. My Senior Project in Studio Arts is focused on restoring the Bell Tower by stabilizing the structure and implementing a permanent light installation of …

Divine Interiors: Meaning, Spirituality, And Evolution In Baptismal Ritual Space., Mirabai Dorothy Bright-Thonney

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

El Valle De Los Caídos: Spain’S Inability To Digest Its Historical Memory, Michael Heard Johnson

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

"Disreputable Houses Of Some Very Reputable Negroes": Paternalism And Segregation Of Colonial Williamsburg, Nora Ann Knight

Senior Projects Spring 2016

This project attempts to intertwine the intentionally separated narratives of the foundation of Colonial Williamsburg and the narrative of Williamsburg's black community.