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.
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History of Art and Architecture
Sophie Higgerson
PhD Candidate
Research Interests
History of architecture and urbanism; Western Europe and the United States; mountain landscapes; reception studies, critical whiteness studies, and critical heritage studies
Dissertation
Modern Altitudes: The Alps and the Making of Architectural Modernism, 1912-1939
Committee Members
Dietrich Neumann, Itohan Osayimwese, Despina Stratigakos
Biography
Sophie Higgerson is a doctoral candidate focused on the history of modern architecture in Europe and the United States. Her research centers themes of aesthetic interchange in border spaces, especially mountain environments, and the role of design in social and political identity formation. Her dissertation investigates the role of the Alps in modernist thought and practice between the two World Wars, centering the agency of the alpine landscape and its cultural heritage. Sophie received a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies and Art History from the College of William and Mary (2019) and a Doctoral Certificate in Public Humanities from Brown (2022). She has held internships at Historic New England, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and currently serves as President of the New England Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.