PAPERS BY GEORGE L. CLAFLEN, JR.
All papers © George L. Claflen, Jr.
REGIONALISM:
LOOKING FOR REGIONALISM IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting, San Francisco, March 1990. Published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting.
Detailing a search for regional qualities in all the wrong places, namely, in the mainstreams of North American architectural practice. Why I looked, who I talked to, and what I found.
THE NAVAJOS AS A DEVELOPING NATION: SEEKING AN AUTHENTIC
ARCHITECTURE FOR A RURAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Presented at “Rural Planning and Development: Visions of the 21st Century” conference, University of Florida, Orlando, February 1991.
Possibilities for the facilitation of culturally responsible design procedures and cross-linkages between the study of environmental design in Native American communities and the rural third world are explored through a study of the process of designing two Navajo schools.
THEORY:
YOU CAN’T FAKE CONFLICT
OR A VISIT TO THE STUDIO WITH MICHEL FOUCAULT AND RICHARD SENNETT
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 1989. Published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting.
An inquiry into the themes of both broad patterns and intimate realms of disorder and conflict in architectural education.
THEORY — THE EISENMAN SERIES:
BORROWING ARCHITECTURAL THEORY:
FISSURES IN THE SIMULATION OF COHERENCE
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, April 1991. Published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting.
An investigation of the translation and application of theoretical ideas from deconstruction, molecular, biology, and fractal geometry in Peter Eisenman’s Frankfurt Biology Laboratories project as a case study to assess possible difficulties in such borrowing.
DEEPER THAN DECON:
CULTURE AND CONFLICT IN ARCHITECTURE
Outlining the missing context of structuralism and some questions concerning the unique nature of textuality and arbitrariness in architectural form.
“SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE”
SOME PROBLEMS IN THE CRITICAL METHODOLOGIES OF PETER EISENMAN
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting, Miami, March 1988. Published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting.
The lack of fiercely contested critical ground for architectural criticism has made the field open to the introduction of trends, movements, or positions from other areas of inquiry which may appear to provide the methodological framework which is lacking. No modern theorist has been more aggressive in this pursuit than Peter Eisenman.
URBAN DESIGN:
CREATING MODELS FOR LOCAL RESPONSE IN URBAN DESIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE:
THE ROLE OF THE URBAN DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture/European Research Conference, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Holland, May 1992. Published by Delft University of Technology. Presented at National Conference of Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, Philadelphia, November 1993.
This paper first surveys weaves the educational ideas and theoretical landscapes of the urban design research studio as practiced at several North American schools around the specific conditions of several new and characteristic types of urban design problems emerging in the East.
FRAMING INDEPENDENCE HALL:
RESISTING PURIFICATION THROUGH URBAN DESIGN
Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture/European Research Conference, Technical University, Berlin, Germany, June 1997. Published in conference proceedings, “Building as a Political Act.”
Visions of a proper architectural presentation of the founding of the nation have motivated architectural and urban design proposals in Philadelphia for nearly a century. Attempts to alter the public understanding of Independence Hall through urban design raise powerful questions of authenticity, ambiguity and interpretation.