Things are starting to coming together...

My first draft proposals of my thesis is due on Monday. I think I have found the angle I want to take within my (quite) broad initial thoughts. I wanted something that allows me to explore issues of identity and globalization without evoking in people's minds any of the regressive stereotypes of words such as 'regionalism' or 'vernacular'. I also want my thesis to be fun. Not a joke, but fun; after all I do have to stay interested in it for almost a whole year. That being said, here is what I'm thinking: Tourism. In an architectural sense. As in, the architect AS tourist.

Title:
Architecture's grand TOURISM:
the rememergence of localities within a global discourse

I like the title because it evokes several things: 1) the history of architects as tourists from the "Grand Tour" of old (the capstone of an architectural education); 2) current trends of tourism around the world as it relates to a global culture; and 3) What tourism means specifically to the discourse, as architects practice globally but an individual buildilng has to exists on a certian site in a certian locality.

This quote by Mark Wigly provides a nice opening book-end to the scope of my arguement:

“Architects are often asked to dream up schemes that completely change the face of a place that they barely know. Their models and drawings establish a dramatic contrast between the fabric of the existing city and a wide array of exotic implants. It’s a kind of invasion by architecture. A foreign takeover. The outsiders arrogantly project their fantasies onto someone else’s city. Do they really understand the local traditions, rhythms, pathology, and complications? What kind of feel do they have for the place? Can it be anything other than the superficial feel of the tourist, even if it is the earnest tourist who deliberately wanders away from the guided tour to take snaps of unadvertised local color? Tourists, like any other kind of invader, always leave their mark. Architects simply want to leave huge marks.”

-Mark Wigley

I am reading Hans Ibelings' Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization, which talks about phenomenon of this idea such as the death of the 'jet-setter' and star-architects as rockstars on tour (along with other, more serious things). And I am excited about it; for the moment, the feeling of terror is gone.

Now, just to find a site and a program...

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[1]Mark Wigley, “Local Knowledge” Cataloge of studio work from Stadelschule Frankfurt, 1999. Found in Phylogenesis: foa’s ark. Barcelona : Actar, 2004. p. 7.