Arch 4999H (UG4 Studio) Honors Research Project - PALACE OF ALL TRADES

Project Brief - "In a building campaign that spanned all Soviet republics, public “palace” buildings were the cornerstone of the architectural image that defined a political regime. At the time of their construction, the palaces were categorized primarily by program—wedding palaces, sports palaces, cinema palaces, youth palaces, and cultural palaces. This studio will examine these historical precedents by enterprising architects in fifteen independent nations who all used architecture to make bold statements about culture, politics, and public space.

The paradox of the public palace, and what distinguishes it from other typologies, is in its standardization of originality. Each public palace embodies a schism of identity between an abstract polity (the state) and local pressures (resources, traditions, etc.). This studio asserts that in our current cultural and political moment, it is increasingly evident that buildings cannot operate naively as singular objects but instead must negotiate

questions of collective identities at all scales. Modernism’s clarity and formal legibility in Soviet republics create an architecture capable of absorbing multiple public narratives that evolve over time. Renewed interest in these spectacular works of modernism aligns with contemporary formal interests in primitives, origins, symmetry, and seriality.

By contrast, the United States has no history of a universal, large-scale public building campaign. Buildings, services, and spaces in America are often characterized by neighborhood inequality, security restrictions, and private memberships rather than free, public services. This studio will use the inspiring (but also complicated

and problematic) history of the Soviet public palace to consider what is lacking in America’s social building infrastructure.

Through research and design, this studio will ask: How did the historical examples of public palaces fall short? What were they missing? What were their successes? How can their architectural inventions be applied to our current context? What should we add to America’s social infrastructure? Who needs public palaces in America today? How should these ideals be expressed architecturally?

Group work is highly encouraged. Collaboration is a natural part of the design process and a crucial skill for beginning architects to master. Teamwork also allows students to share the material costs of a design studio."

Partnered with Henry Gleeson.

The Palace of All Trades was developed as a prototype operation to create more public space within developer project towers. As a research project, it was derived from the precedent of the later Soviet public workers' palace. These were large public monuments for performances, rehab, weddings, and many other programs. Our proposed example is a massive trade union hall placed within the Lincon Yards district, where Striling Bay Properties is proposing several projects over an old industrial yard. Our proposal is that the architect, through the game of scale and with spite for the developer, sneaks in oversized MEP and structural elements that are so incredibly oversized that they become inhabitable. A 12’ conduit becomes a spiral staircase, a beam becomes a wall, and floorplate assemblies become a public union hall. The architect's scaling game becomes so obscene the traditionally firm barrier of the envelope is distorted and pushed outwards, causing these scaled elements to protrude and some interior elements to be disjointed from the skin.