History of Art and Architecture

Ph.D. Student Sophie Higgerson Selected for Doctoral Research Residency Program at the Canadian Centre for Architecture

At the CCA, Higgerson will be conducting research for her developing dissertation, tentatively entitled "Alpine Imaginaries: Organicism, Vernacularism, and Authenticity in the Modern Alps." The project aims to theorize a history of vernacular Alpine architecture's relationship with modernism through its varied and recurrent intersections with the movement.

Sophie HiggersonHiggerson is particularly interested in structuring her research around the recurrent role of vernacular Alpine architecture in the architectural culture of the long twentieth century, with particular focuses on the relationship between Alpine architecture and the development of Central European nationalisms, the exportation of vernacular Alpine architecture through tourist and leisure networks of mountaineering and alpine skiing, and debates over critical regionalism connected to vernacular Alpine architecture's relationship with modernist architectural practice.