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Three of our PhD Architecture students – Sarah Alajmi, Basak Eren, and Michael Toste—have been awarded 2023/2024 H+U+D graduate research awards in support of their scholarship. H+U+D is a joint effort among the Schools of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and the Weitzman School of Design whose objective is to promote synergies among the humanities and design disciplines. Focused on “The Inclusive City” as its theme, our graduate students receive small research grants to support interdisciplinary design/humanities projects in humanities and design disciplines that focus on the built environment. https://www.humanitiesurbanismdesign.com/meet-our-student-awardees/
Between Nomadism and Settlement: The Architectural Transformation of the Arabian Desert, 1940s–1970s
Sarah Alajmi’s work is focused on the Arabian desert which underwent a tremendous transformation in the twentieth century after the establishment of nation-states and the oil industry, creating the modern desert landscape with settled tribes. This dissertation examines this transformation that impacted the tribespeople of Arabia and led to their sedentarization in formal and informal settlements.
Fragmented Legacies: Reconstructing Leyla Turgut's Architectural Practices and Archival Afterlife at the Intersection of Migrating Borders, Identities, and Bodies
Basak Eren’s research employs feminist architectural historiography to examine the life and architectural contributions of Leyla Turgut (1911-1988), a pioneering female architect in the Republic of Turkey, by considering her cosmopolitan and migrant identity as a woman who spent most of her early life outside of the country. The research explores the influence of migration and shifting borders on shaping her afterlife, demonstrating the ways in which her career was determined by gender, migration, changing state borders, and national identity; while questioning why her personal and professional identities have become fragmented, and her architectural legacy largely ignored.
“Long Live the Cooperative!” Architecture, Democracy, and the Labor Movement during the New Deal.
Michael Toste’s work is focused on the 1930s and ‘40s, and the work of German American architects Alfred Kastner (1900-1975) and Oscar Stonorov (1905-1970) who reflected their desire to advance a “bottom-up” approach to architecture and community planning, aligned with left-flank of the burgeoning labor movement in the United States; however, segregation, notions of “self-help,” and the political machinations of their institutional clients greatly complicated their commitment to participatory design, despite their beliefs in racial equity, and worker solidarity. My project examines the roots of Kastner and Stonorov’s personal politics and how their architecture exemplifies the difficulties of creating a socially conscious modernism conducive to the US context.
