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Karen Zellner, AIA

Karen Zellner, AIA

Brooklyn, NY, US

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Soviet pool in Kabul. Site of project.
Soviet pool in Kabul. Site of project.
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The [eye]con.

Winner of the 2009 School of Architecture’s Harriet Peck Prize for Best Thesis

Thesis Statement: Architecture as an icon performs as a signifier for time and place. Precariously balancing between multiple scales, it draws definition from the past tense and assumes a role in the future. Inhabiting the space found between contradictions it’s architecture becomes more than a material reality. It is a medium to encounter the tension between individual experience and collective memory. Besides operating within the rigid constraints of physical being, the icon creates a spatial syntax in which the polarity between context and image can be realized. It transcends ‘object’ through the manifestation of complex social, media and sensory events.

Project: Design of an architectural icon for Kabul, Afghanistan.

 
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Status: School Project
Location: Kabul, Afghanistan
Additional Credits: Advisors: David Bell, Ferah Garba, Axel Hausler, Jake Nishimura, Michael Oatman
First year helper: Sarah Goldfarb

 
Rendering of interior space.
Rendering of interior space.
Inside out gallery pavilion.
Inside out gallery pavilion.
Inside out gallery pavilion.
Inside out gallery pavilion.
Initial graphic studies into symbols and icons.
Initial graphic studies into symbols and icons.
Icons- computer versus religious and historical.
Icons- computer versus religious and historical.