In “Radical Thought,” Vittoria Di Palma argues for the value in studying the faraway in time and place to defamiliarize our preconceptions of architectural precedent. This project is primarily concerned with the under-explored design potentials of these under-represented histories, especially as they bear on questions of the tall building in an “alien” setting such as New York City today.

Distant Towers

The first phase of the project begins with an in-depth analysis, or subjective interpretation of the past, researching three precedent structures from the Global South; Sathmahal Prasada, Chullpa, and Qutb Minar. The analytical representations produced are intrinsic to the analysis. Each drawing discovering and documenting each of the structure’s geometry, order, and character. The scale model as an abstract and totalizing artifact are foregrounded in the design process of the tower project.