A Fieldhouse in the City: On the Image and Form of a Civic Amenity

Abstract

Architectural imagery has come to possess a certain duality within contemporary discourse. As the mode of the image as a digital output – the computer-generated visualization of an architectural response – is increasingly overwhelmed by technical availability and outsourced labor, its productive role is seemingly diminishing. But concurrently, as a second, less tangible mode of imagery – the physical form and appearance of an architectural response – is increasingly pressured to address various external priorities, its civic responsibility is seemingly expanding. This conflict of necessity between the “architectural image” and the “image of architecture” raises the question: can imagery and form more critically interact to produce a civic effect? This thesis proposes a reciprocal method in which both the image and form of a new civic building are designed and developed recursively. It foregrounds the computer-generated visualization as a constructive instrument that rationalizes an architectural response and projects its resultant metaphysical effects – conceptually generating a civic image and form simultaneously. The proposal subverts a conventional workflow by absolving the visualization from a predetermined artifice and leveraging its productive potential instead. It considers the park district fieldhouse, once a grand symbol of pride and equality among Chicago’s culturally diverse neighborhoods, a test case for the proposed method. Here, the project challenges the presumed form and democratizes the realized image of a new, prototypical civic typology. Ultimately, the thesis seeks to re-legitimize the architectural image as a vital medium to expand architecture’s communicative agency and capacity in the public domain.