Time: Thursday, 03/Apr/2025: 2:30pm - 4:00pm Session Chair: Michele Lamprakos, University of Maryland Presenter: Lauren McQuistion, Wentworth Institute of Technology Presenter: Aysan Mokhtarimousavi, Clemson University |
Location: Stamp: Carroll B Stamp: Carroll B https://stamp.umd.edu/about_us/directions_stamp https://stamp.umd.edu/about_us/directions_stamp/building_map |
When Architects Were on TV: Media, Myth, and the Case for Jeffersonian Architecture
Wentworth Institute of Technology, United States of America
The series Pride of Place: Building the American Dream aired on PBS in the spring of 1986. The show, hosted by architect and historian Robert A.M. Stern, constructed a narrative supporting the importance of America’s architectural history and its origins during an era in which disciplinary history took an increasingly important role in architectural education and practice under the aegis of postmodernism. The show consciously marshalled a media format intended for a popular audience toward the creation of American architectural celebrities in the form of both contemporary and historic sites and their designers. Thematic episode chronicled Stern’s travels across the United States to sites of architectural significance, ranging from individual buildings and monuments to exemplars of American urban and suburban typologies. Frequently joined by prominent architectural figures of the day including practitioners Philip Johnson, Peter Eisenman, and critic Paul Goldberger, Stern’s guests lent expertise to the formation of a narrative of American architectural history and its implications on contemporary American life.
Among the historical figures and sites celebrated as the progenitors of American architectural heritage was Thomas Jefferson and his designs for Monticello and the Academical Village of the University of Virginia which were prominently featured in the first two episodes of the series, “The Search for a Usable Past” and “The Campus, A Place Apart”. This paper will critically re-examine the emergence of architecture as a subject of popular media including TV, reevaluating how Stern’s Pride of Place intersected with a significant preservation campaign to recognize Jefferson’s architectural contributions as UNESCO World Heritage sites in the mid-1980s. Analysis will include a discussion of the lasting implications of the heroic narrative of Jeffersonian architectural ideals which emerged from the media narrative that supported these preservation efforts and that have complicated the contemporary reframing of these projects as sites of enslavement.
Revisiting the City Tower Project: Geometric Principles and Structural Integrity in the Works of Louis I. Kahn and Anne Tyng
1Clemson University, Clemson, USA; 2University of Maryland, College Park, USA; 3Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, USA; 4Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, USA
This paper explores the City Tower project, an unbuilt design by Louis I. Kahn and Anne Tyng that significantly altered the integration between form and structure in architectural design. Initially envisioned in the 1950s, the City Tower was a revolutionary skyscraper structure based on space-frame system that incorporates tetrahedral and octahedral geometries. The study aim is to analyze the geometric and structural aspects of the City Tower, particularly the use of octet truss systems to develop modular and adaptable architectural forms, and highlights a shape grammar as a computational tool for generating modular and scalable frameworks that emphasize structural coherence. The research also investigates potential applications of these findings in modern architecture and reveals the potential of using tetrahedrons and octahedrons as fundamental geometries for creating scalable and modular designs.