Dr. Jennifer D. Webb
Associate Professor of Art History
Department Head
University of Minnesota Duluth
218.726.8411
Associate Professor of Art History
Department Head
University of Minnesota Duluth
218.726.8411
Explore the final design projects created by undergraduate students in ARTH 2300: City as a Work of Art:
City as a Work of Art Projects and in ARTH 3331: European Architecture
Select Scholarly Work & Creative Activity
Art Fleming, US Steel Plant in Morgan Park (Duluth, Kom-on-Inn)
Studies of the effectiveness of Remedial Action Plans (RAPs) call for the prioritization of placemaking and broadening of the definition of stakeholders. This paper argues that such stakeholder groups should include local historians, archivists, and art-or-architectural historians whose knowledge of local, place-based initiatives and familiarity with the built and visual landscape offer invaluable insights. In addition, instead of making new places as part of revitalization and remediation initiatives, such work should focus on the re-making of human-scaled spaces and places with unique histories to which residents are already attached. Several recent-and-ongoing projects in the St. Louis River AOC demonstrate the effectiveness of work that re-imagines places with clear and established identities and which does not turn away from problematic and complicated histories. An exploration of these initiatives in the St. Louis River AOC is combined with further consideration of placemaking and place attachment and an examination of industrial portraits created by Art Fleming for the Kom-on-Inn Bar in West Duluth in the 1950s, which are testament to the pride in place and the importance of the river and industries in the making and then breaking of the neighborhoods and the larger ecosystems of which they are a part.
Mar 31, 2022 Spend a day in Italy during Virtual Bulldogs Behind the Scenes!
Dr. Jennifer D. Webb will "take" you to two of her favorite towns in the Marche region of Italy: Urbino & Pesaro. We'll begin the "day" exploring a well-preserved Renaissance city & end with an evening spent on the shores of the Adriatic.
Renaissance Society of America, Annual Meeting (April 2021)
On May 27, 1475, Camilla d’Aragona processed into Pesaro to celebrate her marriage to Costanzo Sforza; she rode along a new boulevard and passed temporary architecture. Such architectural interventions and spectacle transformed urban spaces into places that celebrated the joining of two quattrocento dynasties and showcased their cultural sophistication.
Studies of placemaking focus on public, urban interventions but, what happens when such careful crafting of identity takes place inside the home? This paper uses the eyewitness account of the Sforza-Aragon wedding to explore the role of placemaking in the domestic interior. I begin by describing the way that identity was created in the urban spaces of Pesaro and then consider how the same strategies were adapted to the smaller, private spaces inside the Palazzo Ducale. Using theories of placemaking and space syntax analysis, I study how access, privilege, and the creation of place helped formulate identity and reinforce power structures.