Logan Weaver Studies New York City Architecture

2015 Feb 9

On the morning of Saturday, Nov. 16, Ithaca College architecture student Logan Weaver, a junior architectural studies and English dual major in the School of Humanities and Sciences, boarded a bus headed for New York City. He was on his way to visit eight buildings as part of a fieldwork in architectural history class taught by assistant professor David Salomon.

The class was created around the idea that studying buildings in-person produces an important historical understanding that cannot be achieved using other methods. Throughout the course, students examine the relationship between architecture and architectural history through the lens of a different theme each semester. During the fall 2014 semester, the course focused on the architecture of New York State and its representation in encyclopedia-style synopses.

Students in the course assembled histories of various structures while Salomon organized the trip to New York so his students could literally walk through what they had studied.

While in the city, Weaver saw how the buildings currently functioned in order to understand the buildings’ forms in a more comprehensive way.

After the trip, Weaver discussed how visiting the buildings confirmed or contradicted what he had learned from bibliographic sources and photographs.

The class will publish peer-reviewed work in the Society of Architectural Historians' Archepedia project, a wiki-encyclopedia website dedicated to architecture.