Architecture's grand tourism : the emergence of Prishtina within a global discipline

This Thesis proposes a 2015 World's Fair in Prishtina, Kosovo, to redefine the relationship between tourists and local places. Globalization has created an explosion of world tourism; however, it has homogenized the global landscape and therefore the tourist experience. To counteract this erosion of the identity and sense-of-place, leadership in new nation-states believe that they must consciously exert a new individual identity. This scenario is flawed as well; groups in power seek to instrumentalize a false uniform and idealist identity to serve their own interests. If the global condition is overrun by the tourist, and the local condition is hijacked by the idealist, where does this leave the global-local debate in the discourse of architecture? Creating an ambiguous, complex, cultural condition that confronts and reinvents the most polarizing tendencies of the tourist and the idealist will meet the needs of the largest number of parties that have a stake in the architecture. As the world's newest nation, Kosovo has declared Independence and is partially recognized by the global community. From a decade under international jurisdiction, Kosovo has a complex relationship to the global. In recognizing that this global connection is economically essential to Kosovo, the new country needs to use this international presence to satisfy its own pressing need to establish the legitimacy of its new government. In this proposal, the international presence currently operating in Kosovo provides a network of structures for an International Fair which introduces Kosovo to the world.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Rushfeldt, Laura E

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mark Jarzombek.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57677

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/57677