Pivotal constructions of unseen events: Building the American dream

Abstract

Is important that architecture is the product of more than the aesthetic concerns of the architect and the practical concerns of the client. It straddles two realms: that of the fine arts and that of the highly practical and utilitarian. In its dual nature, architecture is most often cast as a high art; the outcomes of architectural thinking and making are celebrated, analyzed, and documented for their aesthetic significance as art objects. Architecture’s impact as a service, being practical and useful, are deemed less worthy by both the discipline and profession. Pivotal Constructions of Unseen Events reconstitutes a new reading of American history from 1871-2020, a period marked by tremendous national growth and building, alongside the rise of new shared ideas, practices, and customs that have shaped—and continue to shape—the structures of American society alongside the structures of its built environment.Through the construction of five narratives for five buildings of architectural origin, this research examines the social, technological, material, and economic forces that led to their emergence and construction, as well as the outcomes that arose in society afterward. Pivotal Constructions demonstrates—through the close reading of buildings—how to understand architecture as historical event rather than historical artifact. Whereby architecture’s historical significance is not solely as a static object (or artifact), but rather as something that happened and happens (an event), transforming and shaping history in unexpected and significant ways. This approach gathers and reassembles evidence of architecture’s historical significance, elements hence claimed by other narratives, absorbed by other disciplines, and told by other actors. This method of re-constructing architectural history, is meant to recapture a fuller gamut of architecture’s impact on and in society.For VIBRArch 2022, this author presents one of these narratives: “Building the American Dream”, the history of how the arrival in 1908 of the Gamble House (Greene and Greene Architects) played a part in the genesis of the single-family, detached house, which has become a potent and defining symbol of American values and morals.