Josie Kuchta

Architecture major

I am fascinated by building materials as vessels of cultural and physical memory. Building materials make up the fabric of our critics, from the sidewalks we traverse to the government buildings that loom overhead. A consistent material palette both defines and molds to local urban narratives. Learning from the connections between communities and their construction materials sheds light on the value of everyday placemaking.

At Wellesley, I approach architecture from a variety of perspectives, studying placemaking through natural materiality and collective memory. In prior work, I have researched communities' ecological and cultural connection to place and experimented with the structural and narrative qualities of materials such as stone, leaves, plaster, and polystyrene.

Through sculpture, drawing, and design, I aim to interweave the physicality of space and the culturally-hed conceptions of place with embodied experience. Exploring the contuining legacy of brick enables me to visualize these connections concretely.

From the Ground Up: Material Exploration of New England Brickmaking Through a Contemporary Danish Lens

clay, archival inkjet on paper

Jewett Gallery and PNW 205

gallery installation view of 3 large architectural proposal print-outs and a small pedestal with a couple handmade bricks on it

three rows of handmade bricks, tan in color and irregularly shaped, with finger marks deeply gouged into them

Sparked by my material surroundings during a semester in Copenhagen, Denmark, and built on a foundation of my previous academic work, I investigate brickmaking narratives through historical research, material exploration, and design. I experiment creating custom bricks, ones that express the physicality of both my body and the clay; I visit past and present brickmaking sites; and I design a public monument that highlights brick as a material of meaning. Represented through hand drawing, computer-aided design rendering, and sculptural installation, I propose a four-foot-high curving wall for a public park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The monument constructs a cohesive narrative of the local legacy of brickmaking, honoring the regional impact of an underrepresented community. In the hands of contemporary residents, the work has the potential to connect the everyday lives of the immigrant communities who built it with those who live there today.

CAD-style rendering of proposed monument; two rows of large brick forms, each filled with smaller bricks, stacked to make a low curved wall

CAD-style rendering of a large rectangular stack of bricks sandwiched between two flat rectangular pieces to make one big rectangular solid with heavily textured sides

installation view of a room with several small irregular bricks illuminated by a pink lamp; the corner of the room is bathed in low pink light and shows a much larger shadow silhouette of the wall made by the bricks together

close up on thin nails in a wall with safety orange line threaded between them; the scene is bathed in strong magenta light

view along a wall towards a corner, showing large shadows cast by a sculpture and a safety orange line tracing the outline of the shadows

close up on several tan irregular handmade bricks with finger marks deeply gouged into them

<< previous artist | return to Remember a Place Not Here | next artist >>