Architecture Commons^™

"Introduction" To Presenting Difficult Pasts Through Architecture: Converting National Socialist Sites To Documentation Centers, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This study deals with the question of how architectural design, when applied to his­torical places, can assist in bringing an extremely difficult – notable and troubling – past to the present in meaningful ways. In particular, it examines postwar architectural designs that converted National Socialist perpetrators’ places into documentation centers on National Socialism whose explicit purpose is, above all, to present and discuss the community’s involvement in the National Socialist ideology and actions.

Although the cases I have selected for close study vary stylistically and in many other ways, these centers have a number of common attributes that make the …

Experiencing The Architecture Of The Incomplete, Imperfect, And Impermanent, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

For some time now architects have operated with the notion that the building is complete when construction is finished. They strive to make the building perfect and wish to keep it so permanently. Seen from this point of view, any subsequent alterations seem to degenerate the original. And yet, buildings never stay the same as they take part in politics, economics, and religion through the course of time. Their changes may be caused by natural forces or artificial means, and may manifest physically or in meaning. For example, immediately after the inauguration of the Colosseum in Rome, structures were added …

Sir Walter Scott And Kenilworth Castle: Ruins Restored By Historical Imagination, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This is a study of how the architectural ruins of Kenilworth Castle contributed to the historical imagination of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and how he forged their literary restoration. The castle, located between Warwick and Coventry, was first constructed in the early twelfth century by Geoffrey de Clinton, the royal chamberlain to King Henry I (r. 1100-1135). Major additions were made by King Henry II (r. 1154-1189); King John (r. 1199-1216); John of Gaunt (1340-1399), son of King Edward III and Duke of Lancaster; and Robert Dudley (1532-1588), Earl of Leicester. The castle played a number of important roles throughout …

Appropriation Of Architectural Ruins In Britain During The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Each year all over the world, from Acropolis to Jerusalem, from Angkor Wat to Machu Picchu, tourists flock around ruins. They are fascinated by the lives of the people who are long gone, displaced for political, cultural, or unknown reasons. Ruins entice the visitors' imaginations because of the physical and metaphysical incompleteness - missing roofs, decayed stones, or lost way of living, which once kept the buildings alive. While some ruins of historical significance are set for preservation by lawful designations, some buildings are turned into hotels and other tourist facilities.1 New buildings are also constructed mimicking the form but …

Contemplation On Built Heritage In Ireland: Between Destruction And Preservation, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This paper will examine the fate of several buildings in Dublin, Ireland, constructed during the British rule. The decision between destruction and preservation of such buildings naturally rested heavily on the governments' political attitudes after the Irish independence of the 19205. For example, while the City Corporation let many Georgian row houses fall to vandalism and/or destruction, the Office of Public Works recovered a number of buildings as part of a national built heritage. For example, the former Royal Hospital now serves as the Irish Museum of Modem Art. A number of questions arise, however, concerning architectural signification, which bear …

Design Through Drawing: Eero Saarinen's Design In The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Competition, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Drawing has the power to generate design. It is not only the depiction of an image in the architect's mind, but also, more importanlly, drawing, either the act or the product, can contribute to design as a physical counterpart to architectural imagination. Many architects might agree with this proposition, based on their daily practice. This research is an attempt to cast light on this phenomenon, offering a rigorous analysis and concrete yroofs. The study begins with an attempt to define architectural drawing, which ieads to an extensive investigation of the characteristics of repri::!sentation in architectural drawings. Eero Saarinen's winning entry …