Rotch Travelling Scholar Christopher Karlson publishes performing arts-based architecture research

After Christopher Karlson from Cambridge, Massachusetts won the coveted Rotch Travelling Scholarship in 2011, he was required to document his research as images, drawings, and text to be submitted as a compilation report to the Rotch Trustees. About two years later, Karlson's report is finally available as a print-on-demand book.

The 363-page publication documents Karlson's visits to 35 performingarts landmarks in Europe as part of his exploration of commercialized culture in the 'post-Bilbao' period (1997 to the present).

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"Research Brief: A total of 35 examples of performing-arts-based architecture - spanning almost 240 years of civic metamorphosis - was observed in 28 autonomous cities using Europe’s crowded and competitive urban network as a point of reference and comparative analysis."

"The intention is to investigate the results of such completed projects that all encounter distinctive urban scales, cultural settings, and political footing - with focus on engagement in urban regeneration strategies (from localized communities to entire city districts) and the geopolitical desire to publicize in a competitive globalized society."

"Of the selected observations, 16 were chosen as case studies that spotlight the planning and construction efforts in a ‘post-Bilbao’ period (from 1997- today) - representing almost 6 million square feet of new cultural space and over $5 billion in capital investment."

To read more of Karlson's research, click here. The book is also available for purchase here.

All images courtesy of Christopher Karlson.

See more photos of Karlson's research in the thumbnail gallery below.