Pushpluspull: a Made History of Architectural Aesthetics

PUSHPLUSPULL is the catalog of Michael S. Lee's architectural thesis at Cornell University. The aim is to pursue the development of a historically sensitive graffiti project on a post-war "Brandmauer," or firewall of East Berlin. The intentions of the aesthetic developments are to draw and manipulate the histories, narratives, and apperceptions of many of the city's periods and create a visual discourse. Architectural elements are used as representations while 2-Dimensional visuals become tangible. The catalog marks each stage of the project, from site reconstruction to artistic transformations, resolving in human-scale applications which draw from multiple sources. Images are paired with interpretive writings that draw inspiration from theories of Brecht, Husserl, and Diderot with referential artistic systems of Dostoyevsky, Bosch, and Hejduk among others. As the catalog of work done during the Spring of 2011, the compilation shows a brief overview of past works and set the foundation for Michael S. Lee's artistic endeavors today.