Undergraduate Research : Launching the Future - 3 - Understanding an Unexpected Outcome : A Look at the Democrats ’ 2008 Presidential

In the Face of Architecture: A Look at Andalusia Madelyne Oliver Mentor: Alka Patel Structures are often perceived to be static, due to their immobility, or assumed to undergo fewer physical changes when compared to mobile objects. My project counters this assumption by demonstrating that architecture is, in fact, subject to numerous physical changes—modification, elimination, expansion, adaptation, and evolution. Looking at Andalusia, Spain, I focused on the city of Granada, where I saw the impact of changes instigated by political and cultural institutions in power. In turn, an intricate visible layering of Spain’s histories emerged. From my experience studying abroad in Granada, my interviews with professors, and the data I researched at UGR’s libraries, my instinct was to categorize these buildings. Through anthropological and art historical methods, I found that a structure could not be limited to just representing categories of education, tourism, religion, or domestic architecture. To confine the structure to a single function would be to deny its original function, which had played a crucial role in the structure’s result today. What we can take from this is that a lot more than pleasing esthetics goes into the construction of a building. Architecture is subject to the same rapid changes we see occurring in our societies— political, economical, and cultural. It is not static or remote but acts as key player in communicating to a city’s inhabitants the institutions in power, the dominating interests; finally, it reflects how we arrived at our new position in history.