Monstrous Architecture and the Architect's Monster : Discovering Meaning in Architecture Through Critical Engagement and Intellectual Discourse

The purpose of this thesis is to engage architecture, explore it through an imaginative process, with inventive forms of realism, and use architecture as a vehicle to engage design in a critical process. It will open the opportunity for discourse on the subject of monster. Not monsters under the bed or the ones hiding in the closet awaiting some unsuspecting child, but the breed that offers a discussion or commentary on a particular event, idea, or era. The monster is a way to demonstrate, "to show", and at the same time be explicit in meaning and representation. The Latin roots of the word monster links monstrum with monere, "to remind or warn", it is a "sign or an omen". It is said, that monsters are great signifiers, and in doing so, portray protagonists out of the ordinary. Literature and film are two very strong ways to employ the idea of monster as a narrative, and this thesis will reveal this tactic in architecture.