Our city, what ruins

Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2018.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elliott, Martin Joshua Holmblade
Other Authors: Joel Lamere.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115745
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author Elliott, Martin Joshua Holmblade
author2 Joel Lamere.
author_facet Joel Lamere.
Elliott, Martin Joshua Holmblade
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description Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2018.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1157452019-04-12T23:19:24Z Our city, what ruins Elliott, Martin Joshua Holmblade Joel Lamere. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture. Architecture. Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2018. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Leaks, demolitions, vacancy and ruins. Our City, What Ruins is a double entendre we use to describe the conditions of urban life at the peak time of our practice. On the one hand, one third of the land lay vacant, transforming into blight, and targeted for demolition. The city was the world's flagship destination for wonders of the modern day ruin. We declared the largest federal bankruptcy in the nation's history, and our democratically elected officials were on their way to prison. It was clear the ruin landscape was an allegory for a failing system from the top down. On the other hand, Our City, What Ruins willfully drops the connotations associated with the ruins and the blight that surrounds them, and the bodies who still call the neighborhoods home. Our practice was born out of a necessity we saw to fill a void in society; a collectively led spatial justice practice that was willing to work both nefariously and legally, on the psyche and on the land, on damaged histories and invented futures. We advocate for an expanded agency of the architect; especially in landscapes of divestment and subtraction. This thesis explores spatial and socio economic tactics relating to rebranding of the body, community wealth building and emancipatory infrastructures in the form of drawings, models, slides, legal documents, literature, animation, collage and various other materials and documentation from the time of our practice. All of this presented in the very bureaus we discovered and rescued from a school tainted for demolition. Just as our practice worked to unravel the failed bureaucracy that helped produce Our City, we dive into our bureaus to question What Ruins? by Martin Joshua Holmblade Elliott. M. Arch. 2018-05-23T16:32:55Z 2018-05-23T16:32:55Z 2018 2018 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115745 1036986824 eng MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 233 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Architecture.
Elliott, Martin Joshua Holmblade
Our city, what ruins
title Our city, what ruins
title_full Our city, what ruins
title_fullStr Our city, what ruins
title_full_unstemmed Our city, what ruins
title_short Our city, what ruins
title_sort our city what ruins
topic Architecture.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115745
work_keys_str_mv AT elliottmartinjoshuaholmblade ourcitywhatruins