American Suburbs: Architecture and Ideology

Andrew McKernan graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a double major in Russian and linguistics. He is in Moscow for the 2009-2010 academic year through a Fulbright Student grant, and is associated with the Moscow Architectural Institute. The topic of his research is interpretations of Neoclassical architecture built under Stalin, examining official and unpublished discourse of the architects themselves, and the sociocultural effect the buildings had on the Soviet Union. Upon completion of the Fulbright, McKernan will enter the PhD program in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His second lecture at the American Center, "American Suburbs: Architecture and Ideology," will examine the specifics of American urban sprawl and the resulting realm of suburbia. The talk will include a discussion of the architecture of nuclear family homes and the general layout of suburban towns. It will also tackle the ideological and psychological ramifications of suburbia and "sleeping communities" as built environments in which humans live and with which they interact.