HDCS Thesis Defenses
Congratulations to our 2019 MA HDCS graduating students who brilliantly defended their thesis projects last week!
Melany Telleen
The Mona Bismarck House: Architecture, decorative arts and the construction of identity in Paris
Melany came to Parsons Paris after working as an architect in Chicago. Her research interests include the furniture and interiors of the 18th century, as well as the 1920s and 1930s. In her thesis, Melany examines the ways 18th century domestic architecture and interior design were used by Mona, Countess von Bismarck, to establish and define identity and social status in the 1950s. Her research explores both the history of the Countess’ house and of its decorative elements, as well as, more broadly, the history of domestic architecture in Paris. The 19th century house is a stage set, reimagined as an 18th century interior, done with the sensibilities of the 1930s.
Sif Lindblad
The cave replacing the cube: Considering Asger Jorn and Jørn Utzon’s 1964 unrealized museum as a silenced piece of critical regionalism.
Originally from Denmark, Sif holds a background in art history and has worked as a curatorial assistant on various exhibits in Copenhagen and Paris. Her research aims to transcend the canonical history of design, bringing a voice to the underrepresented and deconstructing the traditional museum narrative. Working with the archive of Museum Jorn in Denmark, Sif’s thesis focuses on a collaboration between artist Asger Jorn and architect Jørn Utzon, who worked together in 1964 to propose a museum that would house Jorn’s collection of works. By examining the museum proposal as a piece of critical regionalism—a theory developed twenty years later by architect and historian Kenneth Frampton —her thesis aims to shed new light on the past, complexifying the perception of projects that have typically failed to fit within the standard narrative of modernism.
Jorge A. Torrens
SAVING FACE: Technocratic Modernism’s Discourse on Architecture & Design through the Exhibition Jean Prouvé, Industriel du Bâtiment at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1964.
The research of Jorge A. Torrens, a Cuban American from New York City, focuses on the politics of space and bodies.  His thesis examines the exhibition Jean Prouvé, Industriel du Bâtiment which took place at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) from January 22 to March 30, 1964. Using the archives available at the MAD, periodicals available at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, technical magazines available at the Cité de l’Architecture and secondary scholarship on postwar France, his thesis interprets the curatorial decisions and mediation of the exhibition as it pertains to the challenges of postwar reconstruction in France and the shift in public reception of the technocratic modernist ideal during the 1960s.
Pamela Arellano Zameza
Exam Major in 20th century European Furniture & Exam minor in Design and Performance
Pamela Arellano Zameza was born in Veracruz, Mexico and grew up in North Carolina. She passed the HDCS Masters exam with concentrations in a major and a minor topic Her major topic was 20th century European furniture, in which the various currents of furniture design from different European countries are studied from an object-based viewpoint along with discourse of the designer & design theories. Her minor topic was in design and performance, and comes from her interest in curatorial performance practices and how the body relates to design objects in a variety of ways to make a powerful statement through the examination of performance theory and challenging traditional notions of identity, gender, and social class.