110430 . Thesis Evolution

MASKING ARCHITECTURE & IDENTITY

Boston Is a city of neighborhoods, specifically ethnic niches that gather in the host society and share in the idyllic view of a homeland left behind.

At the edges of these cultural neighborhoods the boundaries are blurred. Cultures share and adapt their traditions. Identities are called into question and, sometimes, lost in translation.

The West Indian community in Boston has had an exceptionally hard time defining their identity in a society that casts them as ‘African American’, ‘Caribbean’ or, simply, ‘Black’. This group of English-speaking, Afro-Caribbean people inherited their enclave on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester from the declining Jewish population, and they struggled to mask the established buildings with their unique identity, different from that of their African-American or the Spanish-speaking Caribbean counterparts.

Dudley Station is the hub for many ethnic groups in Dorchester, Roxbury and South Boston. Dudley Station is the edge, the threshold and the link between cultures. The edge is a transitional space between cultures; a space to celebrate both heritage and assimilation as we simultaneously seek to fit in and stand out.

The New Immigrant Transitional Housing and Media Center acts as this transitional space, allowing new immigrants to assimilate into Boston while preserving their heritage roots, and second generation citizens to reclaim their heritage past.  The mask, it seems is the tool for this assimilation, allowing us to simultaneously project an assumed identity and protect an inherent identity. Unlike the condition on Blue Hill Ave, which applies a static mask to a flat plane, this project allows the mask to be what it wants to be - a dynamic habitable space. Through mask-like architecture we find that we can belong to two worlds and negotiate our identities based on who we are, and who we want to be.

110127. Thesis Abstract Evolution

The Edge of Place & Identity

Boston is a city of neighborhoods, but it’s not the only one.

People are settlers, seeking place and identity. We simultaneously seek to belong and to stand out.

Cultural groups form niches in the urban fabric and form an idyllic, shared view of the homeland.

The post-immigration identity is shared in the diaspora group and displayed to the host society through food, media and recreation.

At the edges of these cultural neighborhoods the boundaries are blurred. Cultures share and adapt their traditions. Identities are called into question and, sometimes, lost in translation.

The edge is a transitional space between cultures; a space to celebrate both heritage and assimilation.

Is identity enough to create place? If the answer is yes, then how do we navigate cultural space, learn from it and inform it? 

110120. Thesis Abstract Evolution

What is the relationship between Immigration and Identity? In an effort to preserve a cultural heritage outside the homeland, immigrants tend to romanticize the idea of home; a polished version of reality. In the host society immigrants of similar backgrounds gather, form communities, and express their foreign identities through food, media and recreation. When different immigrant groups are aligned in the host society, edge conditions are formed, spaces where culture is called into question and boundaries are blurred. These ethnic groups share space and traditions, borrowing from each other and growing farther away from the authenticity of the homeland identity. What then, if the edge were celebrated as a transitional space between cultures? Here lies the opportunity for an architectural space that allows cultural exchange and, simultaneously, the preservation of a cultural identity.

181210 The Post-Migration, Imagined Identity

This semester has been a period of intense research into the issues of cultural adjacencies, immigration, assimilation and identity. This period of investigation has led to a conclusion about the real and the imagined cultural identity we project. Immigrants and diaspora groups, in their romanticized view of the homeland, form a new identity, loosely rooted in truth, which is unique to the post-migration experience. This expression of cultural fantasy and the imagined identity will be the focus of the architectural project that is developed over the next four months. The design will seek to answer the questions 'can we be emplaced by cultural identity? and how much does the post-migration, imagined identity actually relate to the homeland identity?

101110 . Programmatic Elements

As the Program diagrams illustrate, I see Media and Food as major indicators of cultural identity for the West Indian Group. By Media, I am referring not only to news and radio, but also to the long traditions of written and oral history which hold a Diaspora group together many generations after migration. The relationship between media and settlement, then, becomes one which is infused, legend, myth and folklore enter a community at a specific point, moves through the group and takes on various forms before becoming part of a broader collective belief system outside the Diaspora group. Usually, this transfer of collective memory occurs during meals or food plays an otherwise large role in the process. As such, the following program emerges:


MEDIA:
Radio Station                  +/-   3,500 Sq. Ft. 
Magazine                        +/- 10,000 Sq. Ft. 
Cultural Media Museum    +/- 15,000 Sq. Ft. 


RESTAURANT:               
Coffee Shop/ Bakery        +/-   2,000 Sq. Ft. 
Restaurant                       +/-   8,000 Sq. Ft. 


ADMINISTRATION:          +/-   2,000 Sq. Ft. 


RESIDENTIAL:                +/-  50,000 Sq. Ft. 


CIRCULATION:                +/-  10,000 Sq. Ft. 


TOTAL:                           +/- 100,500 Sq. Ft.                              

101110 . The West Indian Diaspora in Boston

Further research into the West Indian Diaspora group in Boston has revealed a bustling subculture, often overshadowed by the larger characterization of 'Caribbean', or 'African American'. As an English speaking group of Afro-Caribbeans, with colonial ties back to the British empire, this group of people has long struggled to find what their particular cultural identity is in the larger urban fabric. In Boston, the first major influx of immigrants arrived on the boats of the United Fruit Company at Long Wharf in the early 1900s seeking upward social mobility in what they believed to be the center of cultural activity and education in the United States. By the time they arrived, however, Boston was already segregated into distinct cultural neighborhoods and, facing racism, the West Indian group was limited in where they could attain housing, usually in already established 'Black' neighborhoods in the South End and Roxbury. Eventually, they distinguished themselves spatially from the native-born Black community by taking over the Blue Hill Ave. area of Dorchester, as the previous Jewish community was moving elsewhere. The West Indian Diaspora held their cultural identity close, to distinguish themselves from African Americans, and used tools of accent, clothing, song, dance, formation of cricket teams, and celebration of British colonial holidays in addition to starting a newspaper, the Boston Chronicle, and, eventually a Radio Station. Today, the area along Blue Hill Ave is still heavily influenced by the West Indian Diaspora, most noticeably through the restaurants and cultural organizations along the street, and the yearly celebration of Carnival, which parades from Martin Luther King Blvd, down Warren Street, and onto Blue Hill Ave. While this area is the hotbed of cultural activity for this group, their presence extends as far as St. Cyprian's on Tremont St, although it becomes infused with Hispanic Caribbean and African American groups near Dudley Station. As the proposal of this thesis project states, the city is divided and there are edge conditions between cultural groups all over Boston and, in an effort to address the edge between these groups, the site for the West Indian Cultural Media Gallery and New Immigrant Transitional Housing will be located at this intersection of cultures, near Dudley Station in Roxbury. Dudley Station also makes an appropriate site because it is somewhere between the origins of the West Indian settlement and their current location, and is the hub of transportation for each of the cultural groups around Roxbury and Dorchester. 

101018 . Development of an Architectural Program

So, after thinking theoretically about immigration and cultural identity for the past month, it's time to start translating these ideas into what will become an architectural project.  What does it mean to be an immigrant, struggling between assimilation into the host society and a sense of abandoning the homeland? In the context of the divided city, this internal tension becomes even more palpable. To help solve this question architecturally, I will focus on the West Indian diaspora in Boston, specifically in Dorchester, and create a mixed-use program for New Immigrant Transitional Housing with social and community space at ground level. Specific programmatic elements and site location are still being determined and will follow shortly.

Some resources I'm using are:

Cairns, Stephen. ‘Drifting: Architecture and Migrancy.’ New York: Routledge (2004).

Johnson, Violet M. ‘The Other Black Bostonians: West Indians in Boston, 1900-1950 (Blacks in the Diaspora)’ Indiana: Indiana University Press (2006).

Ed. Oakes, Timothy S. and Patricia L. Price, ‘The Cultural Geography Reader’ Routledge, New York (2008)

Cohen, Robin, ‘Global Diasporas: An Introduction (2^nd Edition)’ Routledge, New York (2008)

Ed. Çinar, Alev and Thomas Bender, ‘Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City’ University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (2007)

Tuan, Yi-Fu, ‘Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience’ University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (1977)