Department of Architecture

In 2016 the Canadian landscape architect, Pierre Bélanger, unveiled " Extraction, " a site-specific intervention at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Bé-langer's installation drew attention to the grid as it was used by the British Empire to assert sovereignty over the full expanse of British North Amer-ica (Canada) by implementing the Dominion Land Survey (1871-1930). For Bélanger's " Extraction, " this sovereign act, specifically the act of placing a surveyor's monument to demarcate dominion, became a means to highlight 800 years of geological and human exploitation by the Crown. When used as a means of spatial organization, the grid supported the imposition of political and economic agendas by Colonial Europeans on the indigenous landscape and its inhabitants. Theories of architectural and spatial design methodology (per Man-fredo Tafuri and Rosalind Krauss) contextualize the instrumentality of grids in our review of recent urban , architectural, and geo-spatial works by Pierre Bélanger, Alessandro Rosanelli, Jennifer Bauer and Kelly Rose. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the advance of geo-spatial grid mapping and its countervalent potential for design professionals. Among all the arts – those children of pleasure and necessity in which man has participated to help him bear the trials of life and pass on his memory to future generations – one cannot deny that architecture must hold a most eminent place. Even considered only from the point of usefulness, it surpasses all the other arts. It ensures to the salubrity of cities, guards the health of men, protects their properties, and works only for the safety, repose and orderliness of civic life.

statement Our primary opportunity for visual and auditory experience of utopia/dystopia is through the medium of film, in which architecture plays the primary or " starring " role, a character that makes the utopia/dystopia manifest. In this paper, film utopia/dystopias is examined and their architectural characteristics assessed to understand how architecture and design brings to life the utopian/dystopian world in cinema. Topic Utopian/Dystopian Design Scope The design and creation of utopian communities such as New Harmony, Indiana, and of utopias never realized, such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, rest on the belief that architecture has an important role to play in shaping human behavior for the betterment of those who inhabit it. The carefully considered architecture of such communities can result in places where justice, fairness, freedom, privacy, spirituality, harmony, and happiness can be attained. A parallel argument would be that carefully designed architecture can also contribute to the creation of dystopia: places where anxiety, fear, oppression, alienation, surveillance, spiritual suppression, disharmony, and the crushing power of the state or the corporation are the result. Readers can " experience " such dystopias in the books of George Orwell in 1984, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. However, our primary opportunity for visual and auditory experiences of planned or designed utopias/dystopias is through film, in which the architecture actually plays a part, a character, to manifest the utopia/dystopia. This experience is particularly evident in the case of several films were utopia and dystopia are depicted simultaneously in the same film, and how their depiction is made possible through architecture and design. Juhani Pallasmaa describes the use of architecture in film and the structure of film itself as " amplifiers " to transport the viewer into utopian or dystopian experiences: " Cinematic architecture evokes and sustains specific mental states; the architecture of film is an architecture of terror, anguish, suspense, boredom, alienation, melancholy, happiness or ecstasy, depending on the essence of the particular cinematic narrative and the director's intention. Space and architectural imagery are the amplifiers of specific emotions. " 1 This paper examines film utopias/dystopias and 1 Juhani Pallasmaa,The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2001), p. 7.

Introduction This paper focuses on how a sacred " spirit of place " is defined and developed within locations that are otherwise common or quotidian in nature. Specifically, the authors investigate the means by which the addition of sacred qualities in certain locations can imbue such sites with a unique and sacred " spirit of place " that sets them apart from other seemingly similar locations. These places are settings where an event, action, or element of design, ranging from the mundane to the divine, has transformed an ordinary setting into one of exceptional significance.

With dramatic changes in organized religion and changing concepts of spirituality, how can architecture respond? This article reports on a architecture design graduate studio in which the authors with their students explored the architecture of possible new sacred space.

What are the intersections between architecture and spirituality? And how can architects create spaces that inspire transcendence? Those were the questions at the heart of a recent discussion panel hosted by The Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning.

The discussion, entitled “Journey to the Forbidden Zone: Spirituality and Culture in Architectural Education,” was the kick-off event for a four-day lecture series marking the 10th anniversary of the school’s Walton Critics program, a program which brings accomplished architects from around the world to campus for a year of lectures, design studios, and face-to-face interactions with students.

statement Our primary opportunity for visual and auditory experience of utopia/dystopia is through the medium of film, in which architecture plays the primary or " starring " role, a character that makes the utopia/dystopia manifest. In this paper, film utopia/dystopias is examined and their architectural characteristics assessed to understand how architecture and design brings to life the utopian/dystopian world in cinema. Topic Utopian/Dystopian Design Scope The design and creation of utopian communities such as New Harmony, Indiana, and of utopias never realized, such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, rest on the belief that architecture has an important role to play in shaping human behavior for the betterment of those who inhabit it. The carefully considered architecture of such communities can result in places where justice, fairness, freedom, privacy, spirituality, harmony, and happiness can be attained. A parallel argument would be that carefully designed architecture can also contribute to the creation of dystopia: places where anxiety, fear, oppression, alienation, surveillance, spiritual suppression, disharmony, and the crushing power of the state or the corporation are the result. Readers can " experience " such dystopias in the books of George Orwell in 1984, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. However, our primary opportunity for visual and auditory experiences of planned or designed utopias/dystopias is through film, in which the architecture actually plays a part, a character, to manifest the utopia/dystopia. This experience is particularly evident in the case of several films were utopia and dystopia are depicted simultaneously in the same film, and how their depiction is made possible through architecture and design. Juhani Pallasmaa describes the use of architecture in film and the structure of film itself as " amplifiers " to transport the viewer into utopian or dystopian experiences: " Cinematic architecture evokes and sustains specific mental states; the architecture of film is an architecture of terror, anguish, suspense, boredom, alienation, melancholy, happiness or ecstasy, depending on the essence of the particular cinematic narrative and the director's intention. Space and architectural imagery are the amplifiers of specific emotions. " 1 This paper examines film utopias/dystopias and 1 Juhani Pallasmaa,The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2001), p. 7.

In 2016 the Canadian landscape architect, Pierre Bélanger, unveiled " Extraction, " a site-specific intervention at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Bé-langer's installation drew attention to the grid as it was used by the British Empire to assert sovereignty over the full expanse of British North Amer-ica (Canada) by implementing the Dominion Land Survey (1871-1930). For Bélanger's " Extraction, " this sovereign act, specifically the act of placing a surveyor's monument to demarcate dominion, became a means to highlight 800 years of geological and human exploitation by the Crown. When used as a means of spatial organization, the grid supported the imposition of political and economic agendas by Colonial Europeans on the indigenous landscape and its inhabitants. Theories of architectural and spatial design methodology (per Man-fredo Tafuri and Rosalind Krauss) contextualize the instrumentality of grids in our review of recent urban , architectural, and geo-spatial works by Pierre Bélanger, Alessandro Rosanelli, Jennifer Bauer and Kelly Rose. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the advance of geo-spatial grid mapping and its countervalent potential for design professionals. Among all the arts – those children of pleasure and necessity in which man has participated to help him bear the trials of life and pass on his memory to future generations – one cannot deny that architecture must hold a most eminent place. Even considered only from the point of usefulness, it surpasses all the other arts. It ensures to the salubrity of cities, guards the health of men, protects their properties, and works only for the safety, repose and orderliness of civic life.