One of the things we’re passionate about in this class is high-quality visual research. We want this course to be a place outside of studio where you can utilize the various skillsets involved in building up an architectural drawing—layer by layer, revision by revision—until it expresses a precise architectural idea. In this class, you’ll be strengthening your ability to express your own observations, critique, and thesis on contemporary architecture using visual and written media.
Design has the potential to be an international visual language. When a designer explores the past, they must use the historian’s tools of analytical reading and writing, but they must also find a way to grapple with graphic artifacts through visual and spatial (i.e. nonverbal) intelligence. When working with visual artifacts in this course, we’ll need to agree upon a methodology by which to cite and present those sources. To create a bibliographic baseline for what we expect of you as we perform design research together, we want you to:
select two images (preferably archival): one which represents the capital-M Modern/ism/ists/ity and one that represents
the lowercase-m modern/ism/ists/ity.
remove unnecessary background context(s) to isolate the things, people, events, actions, coalitions, buildings, furniture,
art, etc. that are the subject of your analyses of these terms.
put these two images on a 2048px by 2048px square white background
cite them — use the MLA bibliographic format to tell us where you found the images. Add this text to the image
somewhere.
Include “museum placard” information for your curated images (first two), specifically in this order:
– Name of Author/Architect/Photographer Birth/Death
Name of Work
– Location of Work
– Date of Work / Construction
– Annotation
For example:
Zaha Hadid (1950–2016)
Heydar Aliyev Centre
Baku, Azerbaijan
2007–2012
THEN, create a simple collage of any images of your choosing that explore the theme of capital- vs. lowercase-M modernism. This collage could explore overlaps, connections, shared ideologies and/or underscore dissonances and distinctions between the two. It could speak to their successes or their failures, their longevity or their brevity, but above all — the collage should be a visual reflection on the ideas from class yesterday and/or your own interpretations of these ideas of M/modernity. Be sure to include your name by your work in Miro and check back by Monday (at least) to see what notes have been added.
place your collage on an identically sized white background (2048px x 2048px)
cite source images used in the collage — same as above … it is recommended that your sources have some historic relevance. No clip art; no generic imagery without a specific creator or without a sense of time and place to it.
Last Completed Projects
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