Architecture Commons^™

Art Inquiries, Vol. 21, Oct. 15, 2026 - Full Issue, Kris K. Belden-Adams

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Art Inquiries, Kris K. Belden-Adams

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Alison Place, Ed., Feminist Designer: On The Personal And The Political In Design, Anmol Shrivastava

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Robert Indiana, Love, Biblical Authority, And American Art In The 1960s, David Mccarthy

Art Inquiries

Years before Robert Indiana suggested that his canonical LOVE paintings and sculptures carried erotic connotations, he was explicit in indicating that the series was to be understood as spiritual. In 1973, as the United States Postal Service issued some three hundred and thirty million stamps with his design, he specifically explained that the genesis of LOVE should be traced to his childhood training in Christian Science. Although scholars have certainly acknowledged this background, none, so far, have sufficiently addressed the actual foundational text of the faith, nor have they adequately addressed the evidence of Christian references found in the artist’s …

Harry Boone: From Entropy To Renewal, Gertrude Herbert Institute Of Art, Augusta, Ga, Mysoon Rizk

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Encoded, The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Ny, Tamara Smithers

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

On Loss And Absence: Textiles Of Mourning And Survival, Art Institute Of Chicago, Chicago, Il, Elizabeth S. Hawley

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Floating World: A.A. Murakami, Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston, Tx, Yumi Park

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Marie Taylor Barton And Southern Modernism, Cynthia Fowler

Art Inquiries

This paper examines the efforts by Southern artist Marie Taylor Barton (1904-1992) of Nashville, Tennessee to spread the principles of modern art to her community through her art practice and her advocacy for modern art. Barton emerged as an artist in the first half of the twentieth century. She studied with New York modern artist Ralph Pearson (1883-1958), an underrecognized but highly influential art teacher, at his summer school in Gloucester, Massachusetts. While in Gloucester, she also heard lectures by artist Hans Hofmann and visited Dartmouth College to see José Clemente Orozco’s mural The Epic of American Civilization (1932-34) that …

The Everyday Monument: Architectural And Spatial Transformations Of Rome's Nasoni, 1874–Present, Sandra L. Santos

McNair Summer Research Program

Rome's nasoni are small public drinking fountains that have provided free water throughout the city since 1874. There are approximately 2,500–2,800 nasoni in Rome, actively supplying people with free drinking water. Although they are usually understood as ordinary and mundane hydraulic infrastructure, their persistence across different political periods makes them useful objects for examining the relationship between architecture, public service, and political meaning. This research asks how the forms, materials, and spatial contexts of late-nineteenth-century nasoni differed from fountains constructed or modified during the Fascist era.

Over my three weeks of fieldwork in Rome, I documented seventy-five public drinking fountains …

78 | Paneas V: Paneion Excavations 1988–1993; Part I, Zvi Uri Ma‘Oz

IAA Reports—Monograph Series of the Israel Antiquities Authority

This volume is the first of two presenting the results of the excavations conducted at Paneas by Z.U. Ma'oz in the area that housed the sanctuary of Pan (Paneion) established in the Roman period. It presents the archaeological remains uncovered at the site, shedding light on activity prior to the establishment of Paneion, the construction and use of the sanctuary, and the continued human presence after the Roman period, when the site ceased to function as a cultic compound. The chapters include an introduction to the excavations, a discussion of the site's name and identification, geological aspects, the stratigraphy of …

Front Matter Volume 2 No. 2, Editors Note

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This is yet another issue of the Zamani journal which takes on varied debates and discussions of historical importance through the contributions to the issue. As we embark on volume three of the new journal’s series, this volume carries six articles, varied in scope but interesting in terms of contribution and relevance to historical synthesis. As editors, we hope that the articles contained here will be of interest to a wider audience of not only historians but also of allied disciplines, practitioners and the general readership. As we publish this volume, we also note the advantage of expanding the scope …

Crises In The Nigerian Defence Sector In The Post-Civil War Period, Hussaini Jibrin

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

History has it that post-war period in any country in the world appeared to be with many challenges of re-planning the defence system. It involves the reconstruction of pre-war institutions that are destroyed during the war for onward growth and development. Contrary to this tradition, this article explores that, in 1970 while Nigerians were celebrating about the end of the Nigerian civil war, fresh crises emerged in the country’s defence sector. Thus, General Yakubu Gowon’s government redirected its focus on addressing the crises. The crises are numerous, however, this article dwells on four only. These are demobilization exercise in the …

Performance Of Buffer Zones In Tanzania: A Case Of Maswa Game Reserve, 1950s-2010s, James Benedict Kuboja

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

National parks as core protected areas are universally regarded as the most important wildlife conservancies as they are protecting pristine nature or untouched wilderness. For this reason, global conservationists, with the assistance of colonial governments, introduced buffer zones in a bid to protect important protected areas from poaching and habitat destruction. Despite the promulgation of these buffer zones from the 1950s, scholars have not exhaustively evaluated their effectiveness in the conservation of wildlife resources within core protected areas and wildlife ecosystems at large. Using the case of Maswa Game Reserve in the Serengeti Mara Ecosystem, this article argues that internal …

Historicising Nyerere’S Presidency In The Nyakyusa Mythical Narratives, Ignas Fedeo

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

Julius K Nyerere, the founding President of Tanzania, held office from 1962 to 1985. Much has been written about Nyerere's presidency, with the literature generally falling into two categories: strong advocacy for his decisions, actions, and ideas, and pointed criticism against him. Using narrative and new historicism theories, this article examines the recreation of the history of Nyerere’s presidency in local narratives, specifically Nyakyusa myths. The myths were collected using the oral history interviews from Kyela and Busokelo districts in Tanzania. The Nyakyusa believe that Nyerere was endowed with immense mystical powers, some of which embedded in his stick and …

Śaṅkha-Dvīpa And The Swahili Littoral: Reconstructing India–East Africa Contacts Before The Common Era, Narendra Vijayasimha

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article is the first focused attempt to explore India–East Africa relationships in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, approximately two to three millennia before the Common Era (3000–300 BCE) from a puranic perspective. While extensive scholarship exists on medieval and later Indo–African exchanges, the pre-Common Era period has remained underexplored. Drawing on Purāṇic cosmographies, Greco-Roman geographical accounts, African archaeology, and Indian Ocean trade studies, this research reconstructs possible networks of contact facilitated by monsoon navigation and long-distance exchange. Methodologically, the article integrates textual exegesis, comparative cosmography, and archaeological correlation. The findings suggest that Indian conceptions of Śaṅkha-dvīpa reflect …

Labour Migrancy And Ethnic Stereotypes: Experiences From Mufindi Tea Plantation, Ca. 1920s To 2000s, Hezron R. Kangalawe

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

While tea plantations brought good fortunes to some parts of Southern Highlands in Tanzania such as Mufindi and Rungwe during the British mandate, its production sites became centres of ethnic contestations in relation to work discipline. The colonial and post-colonial enterprises labelled some ethnic groups as “reliable labourers” and others “unreliable”. This article, uses the tea plantations in Mufindi district, Iringa, to debate the labour question and ethnic identity in tea plantations between 1920s and 2000s. It argues that tea plantations were practical point of colonial stereotyping whose architects were anthropologists. Interviews in Mufindi tea plantations and factories, archival and …

Collaboration In The Spread Of Missionary Christianity In Africa: The Case Of The Apostolic Church Of Nigeria, Caleb Abiodun Adeleye, Oluwasegun Peter Aluko

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article explores the significance of collaboration in the spread of missionary Christianity in Africa through a historical study of The Apostolic Church of Nigeria (TACN). It examines how the partnership between British missionaries and Nigerian leaders produced a hybrid mission model that combined Western ecclesiastical structure with African spirituality. Drawing on historical records, church documents, and existing scholarship, the article adopts a narrative–analytical method to trace how figures such as Pastors George Perfect, Idris J Vaughan and DO Odubanjo negotiated issues of theology, finance and cultural identity. The study finds that collaboration initially fostered institutional growth and doctrinal development …

Soft Korsi: An Embodied Spatial Interior System For Communal Warmth, Faezeh Panahandeh

Graduate Final Projects

ABSTRACT

Soft Korsi: An Embodied Spatial Interior System for Communal Warmth reconceptualizes the historic Iranian Korsi as an innovative textile-based interior system. Traditionally, the Korsi functioned not only as a heating device but also as a spatial, material, cultural, and embodied system, which brought people together around a shared warm focal point. The integration of a heat source, textile coverings, floor seating arrangements, closeness of bodies, and domestic traditions related to warmth made possible a collective experience, rather than an individual or environmental one.

This design project seeks to address the disappearance of the Korsi from contemporary domestic environments as …

Foundations' Deep, Emily Williams, Morgan Williams

University Honors Theses

Most historic buildings do not survive as they were built, yet preservation frameworks still tend to evaluate them as if they did.

Foundations' Deep begins with a structure located in Helena, Montana 59602, a building that sits uneasily within the categories it has been asked to meet. Built in the early twentieth century, it has persisted through alteration, abandonment, and use. What remains is not a stable artifact but a record of accumulated decisions, some careful and many indifferent, now embedded in the fabric of the building itself.

The thesis grows from this condition and from the limits of the …

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

Fetishismus:Facism, Sodomy, And The Exhibition, Matthew P. Gershovich

Masters Theses

Fetishismus examines the contemporary dislocation between homosexuality and queerness. Homosexuality is the biological, innate quality of same-sex attraction. Queerness is rooted in deviance, perversion, and sociologically attached to the “other.” Although almost always used in an explicitly homosexual connotation, “queerness” is not entirely contingent on the physical engagement of homosexual acts. In historical usage, queer is used as a pejorative adjective, implying a lack of masculinity with the intent to invoke repulsion. In contemporary parlance the two are treated as synonymous. This intertwined relationship relies on the forced lack of social and spatial belonging that is rooted in a foundational …

Strata: Portraits Of The Alvarado & The Southwest, Kayla R. Duncan

Masters Theses

History isn't the past; it is a continuing unfolding of the moment, yet we cannot feel time. We see traces of age through patina on copper, the wrinkles on a face from decades of laughter, or the holes in your favorite shirt. Similarly within architecture, what remains: ruins and fragments serve as layers that indicate the passage of time. In what ways are these layers exposed? Hidden? Erased? How do we determine what layers are worthy to be erased, maintained, or glorified as use of a structure or place continues to evolve through time?

The history of Albuquerque spans the …

Household Hegemon: Domestic And Affective Traces Of Us Influence In Mexico In The 1950s And 1990s, Edgar Solórzano

Masters Theses

“Household Hegemon: Domestic and Affective Traces of US Influence in Mexico in the 1950s and 1990s” is a collection of personal essays, historical research, and fictional texts that examine the impact of US-American soft power on Mexican society. This project expands and deepens the research and work developed during my two-year MFA in Sculpture at RISD, evolving material investigations into a comprehensive written and visual record of the 1950s post-WWII boom and the 1990s post-NAFTA transition. These two decades not only represent the most significant in terms of American influence but also the years in which my parents and I …

American Paradise, Virginia Hanusik

Masters Theses

The following is a collection of stories and ideas about the making of our physical and emotional worlds, along with their fracturing, deconstruction, and degradation within the American industrial landscape.  It suggests the value of the unknown and the grace of mistakes, emotional and material friction, and the hiccups that come with learning.

For American Paradise, I’m bringing my interest in landscape extraction, and the people and families within them, to my own autobiography. In this work I turn to where I grew up, the people that brought me there, my connection to manual labor, and the use of specific …

Somatic Prosthetics For Planetary Resonance, Disha Dharesh Kumar R

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how industrial design can transcend extractive technological paradigms in favor of relational interfaces that foster planetary attunement. Framing the climate crisis as a 'crisis of imagination', the research challenges the Western bifurcation of nature and culture by drawing on Indic cosmologies- which recognize stones, plants, and ecosystems as conscious at different levels and participants in a shared cosmic field. By synthesizing research in Biosemiotics, Quantum Information Pansycishm, and Neuroscience, the project redefines intelligence as a distributed, more-than-human phenomenon.

The research materializes as a speculative design artifact: a device that functions as a somatic prosthetic for planetary resonance. …

Embodied River: Deliberate Unbuilding In Post-Dam Landscapes, Travis Kelley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibilities and challenges that legacy hydro-powered dams and mill complexes offer. Through historical and contemporary analysis of New England’s 14,000 dams and of a particular site in Maynard, Massachusetts, the research delves into the factors that make these interventions so challenging. It begins from an assumption rooted in the ethical and environmental imperative to remove or modify legacy dams, which are those built for a purpose that is no longer being utilized, and rejects the existing binary of “remove” vs “preserve,” which is the dominant narrative in the dam removal conversation as it exists in 2026. …

Architecture As Political Symbolism: Power, Authority, & The Built Form, Naomi Minwalla

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This study examines how architecture functions as a medium of political symbolism, exploring the ways in which built environments communicate authority, ideology, and collective identity. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Murray Edelman, the research first establishes how political symbols shape social cohesion, legitimize authority, and construct political meaning. The study then applies architectural interpretation frameworks developed by Martin Warnke, Erwin Panofsky, and Alois Riegl to analyze how symbolic meaning is embedded within architectural form, spatial organization, and ornamentation.

Using a qualitative comparative case study design, the research analyzes two major religious structures: the Seville Cathedral …

Interweaving Cairo's Urban Fabric: The Formal, The Informal And The Contemporary, Hagar Ahmed

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architecture is a negotiation between memory and change, preservation and erasure. In Cairo, a city layered with history, rapid development threatens historic areas and informal settlements (AlSayyad, 2011). While monumental heritage preservation is institutionalized, informal urban fabrics are often excluded from heritage discussions and planning. This research explores Mansheyet Nasser, or Garbage City, an informal settlement between Islamic Cairo and the Mokattam plateau. Over the past fifty years, Zabbaleen residents have built a communal waste collection and recycling system that processes up to 80% of materials, outperforming many regulated cities (Fahmi and Sutton, 2010; Didero, 2011). This infrastructure is both …

Catacombs In Context: Exploring Roman Architectural Influence In The Catacombs Of Rabat, Malta, Emily S.R Hodson

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

Previously, scholarship on the Mediterranean catacombs has focused on isolated sites or on the religious significance and iconography of regional groups. By contextualizing the archaeological data through comparison and recentering the discussion on architecture, this research offers a contextualized, non-apologetic picture of ancient Mediterranean catacombs. This architectural comparison between the Roman catacombs and those of St. Paul and Abbatija Tad-Dejr in Malta reveals both significant architectural change and the persistence of archaic features, suggesting a high degree of cultural continuity under Roman provincial governance on Malta (218 BCE - c. 5th - 6th centuries CE). This, paired with the emergence …