PS19 Graduate Student Lightning Talks
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PS19 Graduate Student Lightning Talks 12:30 - 2:40pm Thursday, 15th April, 2021 Category Paper Session - Track 5 Session Chair(s) Aslihan Gunhan, Leslie Lodwick, Vyta Pivo, Chelsea Wait, Hongyan Yang 12:35 - 12:40pm Architecture for the XI Pan-American Conference of Quito, 1960 Ernesto Bilbao University of Texas at Austin, USA Abstract This paper will demonstrate the symbolic power behind the conception and construction of four critical buildings designed and built for the never-realized XI Inter-American Conference of Chancellors of Quito, Ecuador of 1960, and how this action consolidated Ecuador’s national aspirations of modernity and concealed substantial cross-national geopolitical interests. This crucial infrastructure—the new Airport Terminal, Hotel Quito, University Residence, and Legislative Palace, intended to receive, host, accommodate and gather the Pan-American ministers of foreign affairs and their delegations—unveil Ecuador’s domestic reality, but also the complexity of the international relations between the American nations at the peak of the Cold War. Although these buildings are nowadays icons of Quito’s modern architecture, this study, rather than idealizing their formal attributes and aesthetics, focuses on bringing light on how cross-border agendas and their different ranges of action impacted Quito’s built environment and architecture. This paper explores the different methods and design practices used by local architects, in charge of the Legislative Palace and University Residence, and international corporations commissioned to design the Airport Terminal and Hotel Quito. The different types of building programs and distinct architectural offices—local atelier-based studios reviving European paradigms of modern architecture, versus global corporations basing their work on corporate efficiency and capacity to intersect projects worldwide—show the various levels of expertise and geographical action. They also expose the cultural interexchange across the Atlantic and between North and South America. Although several factors motivated the cancellation of the conference before its inauguration, the organization and materialized work of architecture offer an exceptional case study to call attention to how national and international agendas intersected at the eve of the never-realized XI Inter-American Conference of Quito of 1960. This paper aims to contribute to the history of Ecuador’s modern architecture, practically unknown internationally. Categories Graduate Student Lightning Talks 12:40 - 12:45pm The Filipina Mestiza and Her American Dream House Kimberly Gultia McGill University, Canada Abstract In 1946, after over three centuries of Spanish and American colonization, the Philippines gained its independence, resulting in a stronger search for a cultural identity distinct from its colonizers. This development, however, did not happen immediately after liberation. Cultural identity, specifically middle-class Filipina identity, remained tied to American ways of being. This paper highlights this phenomenon and examines the social construction of the model Filipina and her dream house in a society that had just gained its freedom from American colonial rule. I argue that as the ideal postwar Filipina tried to imitate her white American counterpart, so did Philippine homes attempt to emulate American modern postwar houses. To better understand this attempt at imitation, I ask: How did representations of Filipinas and postwar homes mimic the American ideal in terms of gender identity and architectural design?; and how did these representations of women and houses embody the negotiation of foreign and local influences through hybridity? I articulate how the perceived identity of middle-class Filipinas translates into home design by analyzing its style, space planning, and furnishings. By examining Philippine-published women’s and architectural magazines—through which modernist ideas were disseminated—I provide a nuanced analysis of domestic architecture during the Philippine postcolonial period, essentially telling the story of the Filipino modern home through the aspirations of middle-class Filipinas in a changing society. Through a reading of imitation and negotiation specific to Philippine postwar houses, this research contributes to the larger discourse of global modernism in architecture, providing a better understanding of gender and architecture in the postcolonial context, not only in the Philippines but also in other postcolonial nations in the process of decolonization. Categories Graduate Student Lightning Talks 12:45 - 12:50pm Imagining the Modern Romanian Nation: Architect Nicolae Ghika-Budesti and the Museum of National Art Ciprian Buzila Brown University, USA Abstract Despite its remarkable richness of invention, neo-Romanian architecture remains an under-researched topic, especially internationally. The theme of a “national spirit” in European architecture has often been viewed through the prism of Western styles. For example, the revival of Gothic style has been examined extensively in England and France through the lenses of Augustus W. N. Pugin and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Yet, the revivalist architecture of South-Eastern Europe in the 20th century still remains to be explored in the larger context of modernism. Neo-Romanian architects faced the challenge of unifying the modern needs of Romanian life with nation-specific forms able to recall a past common to the historic principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, after these territories united and gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. In this paper, I focus on the creation of the Romanian Museum of National Art (1912-1941) to show that neo- Romanian style had both symbolic and architectural values. The building itself is positioned strategically at Victory Square in Bucharest, commanding power and attention with its symmetric monumentality. Its creators were architect Nicolae Ghika-Budesti (1969-1943), one of the most important Romanian revivalists of the first half of the 20th century, and art historian Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcas (1872-1952), the patron of the building and founder of the art history department in Romania. In this research, I demonstrate that the attitude toward the past was progressive rather than merely nostalgic, and that the architecture of the museum reflected the collections which were gathered by Samurcas himself and were part of the national ideology. Furthermore, I explore how Ghika-Budesti’s design of the museum, based on the principles of eclecticism, was able to synthesize and revive local post-Byzantine architectural sources from Wallachia and Moldavia, in terms of space, forms, and decoration, in order to express a national style. Categories Graduate Student Lightning Talks 1:05 - 1:10pm Rise of a Mercantile Class and Colonial Influences in Dwelling: A Case of Panam Nagar, Bangladesh Enam Rabbi Adnan Pennsylvania State University, USA Abstract In the Colonial period, Bengal witnessed the rise of a neo-elite Merchant class during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century who was involved in the money-lending and textile, mostly in Calcutta, the capital of British India. Consequently, most of these merchants built houses replicating the Indo-Saracenic architectural style around Bengal imitating the neo-classical architectural style of Calcutta, widely known as colonial style. Panam Nagar is one of these colonial settlements located in Narayanganj, Bangladesh. This settlement was also developed at the same time with the growth of the textile business in Bengal. However, after the partition of India-Pakistan in 1947 and the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971, most of the dwellers left the settlement due to their minority status. Meanwhile, local people encroached at the houses and modified them according to their needs destroying significant architectural features. Eventually, Bangladesh Government realized the importance of the settlement and marked it as National Heritage in 2004. Currently, Panam Nagar stands dilapidated along a five-meter road and surrounded by water-bodies, endures significant testimony of urban development in the realm of dwelling architecture within the rural-urban context. Previous scholarships addressed mainly the ornamentation and advocated for preservation but there is a need to study the living pattern and lifestyles of the mercantile class. To bridge this gap, this study investigates the dwellings of Panam Nagar with the understanding of colonial influence and their translation on the spatial planning of the settlement. Though these street-front houses imitated the Indo-Saracenic motifs in exterior façades, they followed the traditional spatial zones in the planning and layout at interiors by adapting transitional and flexible plans merging the duality of the exterior and interior. This study also contributes to the understanding the history, lifestyle, and living patterns inscribed in the built spaces and establishes the ground for preserving Panam Nagar. Categories Graduate Student Lightning Talks 1:10 - 1:15pm A New Deal for the American Immigrant: The Rehabilitation of Ellis and Angel Islands, 1934-42 James Fortuna University of St Andrews, United Kingdom Abstract This paper considers the New Deal’s interaction with two of the United States’ most significant maritime ports of entry. Conservative estimates figure that no less than eight million immigrants passed through Ellis Island in New York City and Angel Island in San Francisco between 1900-1933.