Americanaaaaaaa! : or a welcome home in Lowell, Massachusetts
Name
1102594851-MIT.pdf
Size
27.87 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f87af324498de0c9d2cffd901ee628ba
Author(s)
Bodkin, Alexander(Alexander Robert)
Advisor(s)
Mariana Ibañez.
Alternative Title
Welcome home in Lowell, Massachusetts
Date Issued
2019
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis studies how nostalgia has been used to construct shared spatial and social expectations through the envelope of the American home. Then, based on the simple proposition to make the home bigger so that it might host a broader collective, it explores how these expectations can be subverted through distortions and exaggerations of the domestic envelope. As these exaggerations reach the limits of symbolic legibility, they begin to suggest alternate internal organizations which have the potential to shape the social relationships and negotiations of a new collective within. The site for this thesis is Lowell, Massachusetts, a once-prosperous textile mill town on the Merrimack River. Lowell is chosen for two of its defining features: its robust preservation campaign, which perpetuates a flattened representation of Lowell's collective identity that is rooted in a 1970s idea of 19th century domestic architecture, and its long history of immigration - today, approximately one quarter of Lowell's population is foreign born. These conditions provide an opportunity to appropriate Lowell's own nostalgia in the design of a new civic building - the Welcome Home - that serves a broader collective of local and newcomer.
Description
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Page 250 blank.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-249).
Subjects
Architecture.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
Terms of Use
MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
Persistent DSpace Link
