Date of Submission
Spring 5-8-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Architecture
Department
Architecture
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Arief Setiawan
Abstract
Wars and occupations happened all over the world throughout history. As Eyal Weizman has demonstrated in “Hollow Land,” architecture actually partakes in wars and occupations (Weizman 11). Architecture facilitates the occupation’s goals of control and dispossession through spatial and formal means. Weizman breaks architecture’s effects on the political environment down into six main categories: anchor point settlements, vertical architecture, uniform design, the dynamic battlefield, the spatial arrangements of settlements, and threshold spaces. These strategies exemplify the way design has been used in an effort to instill fear and erase identities of cultures.
Weizman’s book, along with Lebbeus Woods’ writings and drawings, has investigated the effects of war, and corresponds to the key ideas of isolation and fear as contributive emotions that relate to the elements of the sublime. Further, architectural work of Woods, Piranesi, Bachelard, and John Hejduk explore the way design can instill fear and create the feeling of the sublime, where suspense, curiosity, horror, and pleasure are all joined into one. By analyzing the formal and spatial organizations of these precedents and relating them to relevant literature, my research aims to inquire about design strategies that communicate the effects of war on civilians through architecture.