(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

It 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. 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 social, technological, material, and economic outcomes that arose afterward. Pivotal Constructions demonstrates—through the close reading of buildings—how to understand architecture as historical event rather than historical artifact. In this way, the architectural building’s historical significance is not solely as a static clue to history (an artifact), but rather as something that happens or happened (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. For AMPS Canterbury, this author will present one of these narratives: Equal Justice Under Law, the history of how architect Cass Gilbert’s 1935 Supreme Court emerged and played a crucial role in shaping the rule of law and the actual and perceived authority of judicial supremacy in America.