Jeremy Rodas

summary (10 October 2017)

Constructs of memories and the implications of architecture in the mix through overlapping memories, trauma, scarring, and clashing grids.

thesis proposal (currently untitled)
15 May 2017

I plan on doing a study on architectural mash up in building designs. I want to make designs based on these "imperfections" in the buildings whether it's purposeful, accidental, or even a natural occurence. I find it interesting to view the back side of the YMCA building, the two buildings in front of La Victoria, the combination of Chianti with the house on top of it, and behind the Brown building with the add-on to the brick building that's next the the Legion parking lot. I'm interested in these buildings because they look like they have mistakes, additions, and subtractions in the making of its design. A possible idea for what this can turn into for the long run is that I create buildings with somewhat impossible means of existing, unorthodox living space for the unorthodox person. I would bd designing layouts and structures that would morph or crash on top of each other. Most of the work would be conceptual but I want to try to make a model for one of them for when I have my senior show.

My interest in architecture starts out in early history which includes structures like the Hagia Sophia, the Colosseum, all the arches of Rome, its aqueduct systems, and the basilica formations with their later adaptations in the gothic period that are the flying buttresses. My interest also comes from Ed Ruscha and his paintings of gasoline stations, and how he played with the angle of how the viewer saw the building creating interest in his composition. My own recent work has been based directly on architecture, starting with Using Images and my postcards based on buildings people would recognize in their hometowns, e.g., the Cabot Theatre, or a theatre in my home town dedicated to theatrical plays. Then there were my Beverly Art District posters in the Linsey Building, based on recognizable places in Beverly (like the Cabot Theatre, the Mingo Gallery, Black Veil, Cityside, and the Larcom Theatre), but then abstracted to create movement in the image, in a pop art sort of way. Even this semester, my emblem project (in Design Stories) used imagery from buildings in Boston, and my final in Lithography involved overlays of layouts of apartment buildings that I and my family have lived in, and in some cases still do.