Boston's Villa Victoria: A Space Produced

Location

King Building 343

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-29-2016 1:30 PM

End Date

4-29-2016 2:30 PM

Abstract

My research situates the activism and architectural structures of Villa Victoria, a community-designed public housing project in Boston’s South End, into broader 20th-century discourses of urbanism. In 1968, the city of Boston sought to displace Puerto Rican residents in order to redevelop the neighborhood and was met with organized resistance, which eventually resulted in resident control and design of the housing project. I use archival materials and visual analysis to identify a slippage between the aims of the activists and the resulting architectural image. Relying on the theoretical apparatus from French neo-Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre, my research seeks to reconcile the radical activism and architectural schemes by broadening definitions of space beyond the physical.

Notes

Session I, Panel 6 - The Production of Space: Studies of Ethnicity, Identity, and Place
Moderator: Wendy Kozol, Professor of Comparative American Studies

Major

Art History

Advisor(s)

Bonnie Cheng, Art History

Project Mentor(s)

Sarah Hamill, Art History
Erik Inglis, Art History

April 2016

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Apr 29th, 1:30 PM Apr 29th, 2:30 PM

Boston's Villa Victoria: A Space Produced

King Building 343

My research situates the activism and architectural structures of Villa Victoria, a community-designed public housing project in Boston’s South End, into broader 20th-century discourses of urbanism. In 1968, the city of Boston sought to displace Puerto Rican residents in order to redevelop the neighborhood and was met with organized resistance, which eventually resulted in resident control and design of the housing project. I use archival materials and visual analysis to identify a slippage between the aims of the activists and the resulting architectural image. Relying on the theoretical apparatus from French neo-Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre, my research seeks to reconcile the radical activism and architectural schemes by broadening definitions of space beyond the physical.