Becoming Peggy

Abstract

<p>This thesis examines the intimate relationship between a woman and her architecture, focusing on the importance of the patron's identity to an existing building: in particular, Peggy Guggenheim and the museum she created for her personal art collection, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice. It will engage her narrative from three voices; (1) her own, through archival research of her publicized and private life, (2) personal, through an experiential investigation of her identity in the form of dresses made and worn by the author, and (3) the palazzo, through a spatial study of the architecture. The objective is to establish her place within the myriad of creative speculations that go into the conception of architecture (ie. concerning site, cultural context, urban situation, etc.) as a potential speculative subject. It argues that in understanding an extant work of architecture through equally creative analysis of material fact, the patron must be included.</p>