Reawakening Cultural Significance: Ruin Exploration in its Full Embodiment

Author

• David Majchrzak

Files

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/23211

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

URI

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Abstract

This thesis aims to evoke a “historical consciousness” through the embodied experience of architecture. Specifically speaking, this architecture will reawaken the history of the Native American culture through creative participation in the public realm. The Black Hills has been a sacred land to the Native Americans for thousands of years, before the Euro-Americans took it from them. Through the interplay of absence and presence in the spaces of this architecture I hope to showcase the interweaving of past and present, the monumental and the ephemeral in order to explore the shifting and evolving nature of this culture. The program of my architecture is an Interpretative Center with an Outdoor Theatre in Hill City, South Dakota. The design will showcase the rich history of the Natives through their art, dances, performances, rituals and sacrifices exhibited in the art gallery, theatre and the embodied experience of the architecture “A ruin creates a present form of a past life.” (Georg Simmel) This architecture will create a present form of the past life of the Native American culture. There is no way to re-live the sacred traditions, rituals and customs but perhaps we can experience a new way to re-enact them in the spaces of this architecture?

Recommended Citation

Majchrzak, David, "Reawakening Cultural Significance: Ruin Exploration in its Full Embodiment" (2014). Architecture Theses. 181.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/architecture-theses/181