Francisco Díaz
Pronouns: He/Him/His
UROP Fellowship: Community College Summer Fellowship Program
Grand Rapids Community College
Research Mentor(s): Bryan Norwood, PhD
College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Presentation Date: Monday, July 27, 2020 | Session 3 | Presenter: 1
Authors: Francisco Diaz
Abstract
The research project that I have been working on has been focused on examining the writing of an Early American architect who worked in the mid 1800s. Alexander J. Davis was a revolutionary architect for his time. Unlike many architects of the period, Davis had training as an artist. Many of his peers came from construction or building backgrounds. His work as an artist gave his drawings a unique and imaginative style. Davis was a great innovator, even though many of his works, like his creation of the American Bracketed style, were so imitated that they became staples used in a multitude of domestic buildings.
I have studied Davis by transcribing two of his handwritten lectures into typed text, as well as doing additional readings. My professor and I would then discuss and analyze the transcriptions to attempt to gain a better understanding of Davis. In the two lectures I transcribed, Davis stated a duality in how he viewed architecture; he listed aspects that he deems abuses of architecture in one lecture and stated what he sees as having great taste in another.
A big theme in Davis’s “The Abuses of Architecture” lecture is the idea that if you add on too much ornamentation without a genuine reason, it will take away any true meaning that the building had. A key point in his lecture on “Taste” is that a design needs to be based on sound reasoning and rules. But the design still needs to maintain a sense of imagination and creativity. Having one without the other makes the design an abuse of architecture. Both of A.J. Davis’s lectures that I have covered are sides of the same coin, showing the dualities within architecture.
Google Slide Presentation
Presentation Script
Research Disciplines
Arts and Humanities
