Copenhagen, Denmark

Ronchamp, France

Wolfsburg, Germany

April 25 – May 23

-For my STEP Signature Project, I used my funds to participate in a study abroad program through the Knowlton School of Architecture. The European Studies study abroad program, led by professor Jackie Gargus, took us to seven countries, forty cities, and hundreds of architectural sites in only four weeks. We focused on the history and context of the buildings by doing research prior to our trip. While on site we had theoretical discussions on the building while doing analytical sketching.

-Before participating in this program, I had never visited a place under the pretense of architecture. The way I look at buildings and places now are much different than how I would of in the past. Previously, when reading textbooks or researching a building they always seem to be a stand-alone project without any site context. What I came to learn on the trip is that context within an architectural project is everything. No matter where a building may be, from a mountain top in the Alps or a bustling metropolitan city center, it is always a reaction to its surroundings. Moving forward in my career as an architecture student, I can apply this way of thinking to my designs and research to strengthen them immensely.

Something else the trip taught me is how important understanding other cultures and their history. Since we visited mostly Central Europe, many of the cities had been ravaged by World War II and the Cold War. This effected not only the physical place of each city, but the inherent culture as well. Berlin was a prime example of these effects. Destroyed almost completely by World War II, all of the buildings are either completely new or rebuilds of the pre-war. This gave the city an odd, unbalanced feeling. During the Cold War, Berlin was also divided completely by the Berlin Wall, and the dialectical difference between the metropolitan West Berlin and the more run down, economically deprived areas of East Berlin were intense. It was like two different worlds. Before this trip, I would have never been to articulate or even begin to understand how history has affected architecture and culture like it has in the cities we visited.

-Beginning our program, I had done little international travel. I was not accustomed to being in an environment that I was so unfamiliar with or did not speak the language of the local people. When arriving in Switzerland, the challenge of understanding, interpreting, and getting along through these new places began. We had to navigate public transit, try to buy groceries, order at restaurants, or ask for directions every day. This involved learning about the culture, trying to learn a new language, and also understanding their customs. All of these factored together made it easy to approach a new city or country each time we moved on. We learned about so much history along the way through museum visits and walking tours of cities that it became second nature to apply our new knowledge of history to modern time.

The professor who led the trip has been taking students on architectural tours like this one for twenty-five years. She has a depth of historical and architectural knowledge that was integral to the success of our trip. She is the one who encouraged us to think about the context of a building, like when it was built and why, or what was there before. It is because of her priming us with historical and artistic background information that we were able to understand buildings and places at more than just face value. Her way of teaching, explaining, and analyzing architectural sites is something that I will use as I move forward in my career as an architecture student.

Another cause for transformation during my Signature Project was the exposure to so many different places. Reading about a building or seeing it in picture is one thing, but the physical and emotional experience of visiting and entering one is incomparable. The most vivid example of this was visiting the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany. It had been almost completely destroyed by World War II but was rebuilt post war. During the rebuild of the church, the architects decided to use some of the salvageable stone from the ruins that were burnt and blacked to remind the people of Dresden and Germany of the atrocity of war. The black stones form almost a patchwork within the surface of the smooth brown stones, and they refuse to go unnoticed. If I were to have read about the use of stone at the church in Dresden, I would have understood it but not to a deep extent. Seeing something in real life and weighing the value of it, historically and tectonically, as a piece of architecture on the surrounding areas is something that can only be experienced in real life.

-As an architecture student it is important to go out and actually see architecture. Europe is a goldmine for masterpieces within such close proximity to one another in comparison to the United States. Some of the cities we visited are almost one thousand years old, and they are loaded with history. The biggest lesson I have taken away from my Signature Project is that historical context matters in architecture. If I want to be a successful architect, then I will need to carry this life lesson on with me as I complete my undergraduate and graduate schooling. Buildings should carry the sense of place that they represent, like a church as a holy place or a mountain barn as rustic and fundamental, and that is something that can only be learned from seeing and analyzing architecture. With the help of my STEP Signature Project, I have transformed the way I think, feel, and study architecture.