WritingResearch

04 / 04Essays · Method

Point of view

Architecture as social performance.

I read buildings and objects the way one reads a sitter in a portrait: as deliberate self-fashioning. My MA at Sotheby's Institute of Art trained that instinct on the William H. Vanderbilt residence at 640 Fifth Avenue — a study of New York architecture, Gilded Age interiors, and the work of Herter Brothers.

My research moves between archival history, material culture, and exhibition concept development. Whether I am studying a Gilded Age interior or developing an exhibition around the Plumstead Hoard, I trace objects back to the people, circumstances, and ambitions that gave them meaning, then consider how that history can be made legible through writing, space, and visual narrative.

Architectural History
Material Culture
Exhibition Concept
Research-Led Writing

Reclining classical marble figure in raking light

Master's dissertation · Sotheby's Institute of Art

640 Fifth Avenue

The William H. Vanderbilt residence

My dissertation examined the William H. Vanderbilt residence and its Gilded Age interiors, including the work of Herter Brothers, within the broader transformation of Fifth Avenue. Architecture, furniture, and craftsmanship offered a means of reading the house as a cultural document: an expression of the wealth, taste, and ambition that helped shape New York's architectural history.

The house's demolition brought the stakes of urban change into focus. What disappears with an interior is also a record of making: the materials, skilled hands, and cultural decisions held within it. The research deepened my commitment to understanding that record and my interest in preservation, while informing a design practice attentive to the histories that objects and spaces carry into the present.