De-centering culture : designing and arena for debate and transformation

Abstract

In recent years, the display of culture has been engulfed by consumption. Hereby lies the danger of designing a building [center] for cultural identity. There is a tendency to use building to emphasize the event and festival, which may be successful in terms of economic expectations, but convert art into a commodity. This, as a phenomenon, promotes false unities between individuals and leads to fallacious stereotyping of groups. It is by this manner that the "culture" of the other is objectivized, along with the individual. This thesis project consists of designing a Performance Arts Center for a minority Latino community within the affluent South End, in Boston. Potentially, art can serve as a dialogue between equals. Through a space dedicated to performance and art, it is possible to establish an arena for the discussion of identities, not only for the people of a neighborhood but also for people in the rest of the city. It should describe, and serve as an example for, ever developing and transforming narratives that make up the whole concept of "cultural identity".