Search
Account
Search
Account
Kai Alexis Smith, Architecture & Planning Librarian, kaias@mit.edu
Matt Saba, Program Head, AKDC, mdsaba@mit.edu
Rebecca Bramlett, Instruction & Outreach Archivist, Distinctive Collections, bramlett@mit.edu
Rami Alafandi, Collections Curator, AKDC, alafandi@mit.edu
Amanda Hawk, Public Services Manager, Distinctive Collections, ahawk@mit.edu
Jana Dambrogio, Thomas F. Peterson (1957) Conservator, jld@mit.edu
Ariana Rutledge, Conservation Associate, arianar@mit.edu
The materials in this box were removed from a binder created by the Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji (1926-2020) as a tool for visually organizing and elaborating his ideas about architecture and design. Chadirji and his architecture firm, Iraq Consult, designed hundreds of buildings in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq during the 1950s-1970s, transforming neighborhoods and urban landscapes with a unique style that upheld contemporary international standards of building and was also deeply tied to local traditions.
Chadirji had an interest in architectural theory and wrote several books laying out his approach. One of his enduring interests was traditional, handed-down building concepts and techniques that he saw in the vernacular architecture of Iraq, from methods of reed construction used in the marshy parts of the countryside to the use of arcades to cool the exterior portions of stately homes and monumental buildings in the cities. This binder collects examples of such traditional buildings, loosely organized by site and architectural concept, giving researchers today a taste of Chadirji’s thought process and research methods.
Request to view from the ArchivesSpace.
Martha Dannerbeck Peterson, an art historian and independent scholar, was captivated by the unique features of Islamic stained glass windows. Her curiosity led her to embark on an extensive study and documentation project from 1986 to 2002. Although her research, Glass and Plaster Windows Research, was never published, she generously donated her field notes and photographs to AKDC, ensuring that other scholars could access her findings.
Peterson’s meticulous work documents window details in over 100 historic buildings in Egypt, seven in Damascus, and 33 in Türkiye, including sites in Istanbul and Anatolia. Her collection includes photographs, detailed building files, and hand-drawn illustrations that precisely map the location and intricate details of the windows—their designs, colors, and patterns. Her field notes, drawn from observations and both published and unpublished sources, offer valuable insights into architectural traditions across these regions. This body of work not only contributes to scholarship but also preserves the memory of architectural features that may no longer exist in their original form.
This archive has not been cataloged yet. Contact us to view.
Meejin Yoon
2003
Explore this book as a physical sculptural art object by former MIT Architecture Faculty J. Meejin Yoon. Absence is a memorial to the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Yoon created this non-architectural, non site-specific space of remembrance: a portable personal memorial in the form of book instead of producing a traditional design proposal for the World Trade Center Memorial Competition. This 2-pound book has a considerable physical presence and features die-cut shapes throughout, leaving the impression of each of the World Trade Center’s floors. Quiet, respectful, and restrained, this book speaks without words of absolute loss and mourning.
Request to view from the catalog.
Ali Cherri
Donogola Limited Editions, Beirut
2023
Book of Mud is a combination of text, image, and artifact that uses the idea of mud to call to mind the effect of time and the environment on physical remains. Mud is a reminder of the cyclical nature of history, as it is used as a building material and also represents the primeval state of things that are unbuilt, a state to which buildings return after they are destroyed. Each book in the limited edition of sixty-five copies contains a mud brick with a replica of an artifact encased inside.
This work relates to a broader interest in archaeology present in Cherri’s work. Other objects created by Cherri examine archaeology as a colonial enterprise tied to imbalanced power dynamics, and archaeological scholarship as a driver of value hierarchies, as some traditions and types of objects accrue value and others are discarded according to the interests of the archaeologist.
Request to view from the catalog.
Insiya Dhatt
2021
Created in response to experiences the artist thought they had moved beyond. The experience of being physically confined due to the pandemic, the toxic political environment and social justice exacerbated the feeling of being compartmentalized and categorized.
This book touches upon privilege, bias and isolation. The artist explains that “Even though as individuals, we do not choose our race, gender, color, environment, family and country we are born in, throughout our lives we face some advantages and some disadvantages based on these rigid structures.”
The three separate books come into a singular form posing questions about what we are boxed in by, where did these associations come from, and why is one disadvantaged due to these biases.
Request to view from the catalog.
Alejandro Cartagena
2024
Cartagena is a Mexican photographer who’s projects employ landscape and portraiture as a means to examine social, urban, and environmental issues. For this work he waited on a bridge, pointing his camera down to the road below to capture Mexican carpoolers on their way to work. His work brings attention and humanity to what is left unseen.
Request to view from the catalog.
Thomas Parker Williams
2010
This multi-part artist book constructs a virtual ocean wave by using sequential random numbers and a simple mathematical formula. The virtual wave is represented as it would appear in nature from two perspectives: A 3D paper model and a reduction linocut print. The pull-out three-dimensional paper model has thirty-two sequential paper wave cross-sections. A multi-color linocut print is a pictorial representation of the cross sections.
To establish the physical characteristics of this wave, the artist used data and formulas from a classic work on wave forecasting developed after World War II. The linocut print image is based on the 3D model and augmented using written descriptions of actual wind conditions as well as reference photographs from the Beaufort Wind Scale. However, the linocut image does not exist in photographic form.
Request to view from the catalog.
Heather Weston
2005
Shedding Light explores the book as a tactile object in the extreme and the importance of light and touch within the reading process. Taking away the book’s usual visual narrative clues, the seeing reader is left with little traditional visual information with which to decode the presented ‘text’, but instead is faced with a Braille text implicitly inviting them to feel the narrative. A ‘key’ is provided in the form of a visual Braille alphabet card to assist readers to decipher the Braille and read the narrative that is hidden from conventional view.
By shedding light through the page, the sighted reader may discover a textual narrative on the reverse of the page which is a textual translation of the Braille. This act emphasizes the need for light within the reading process. The ambiguous title, “Shedding Light '' relates to both the ‘loss of light’ implied by the Braille, as well as the ‘casting of light across’ the book needed to complete the text-based reading.
Request to view from the catalog.
Sauda Mitchell
Sauda Mitchell is an artist, educator, and trained archivist whose works bridge the disciplines of library science and book arts. Many of her pieces not only use archival materials as a source of inspiration, but actually link viewers to archives and library collections through the employment of QR code technology within the works themselves. Thus the artist’s book becomes an access point to information sources such as databases and catalogs.
Mitchell describes her artist book Timbuktu as a work that “visually expresses my response to select digitized manuscript pages housed at the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, in Timbuktu, Mali. [It] utilizes the book format as a contemporary art form to celebrate the importance of Timbuktu as a center of knowledge, bookmaking, literacy, and scholarship during its apogee.”
The work contains a QR code that links viewers to some of the digitized manuscript pages from Timbuktu libraries that inspired the work, made available online through an exhibition at the Library of Congress.
Request to view from the catalog.
Rhiannon Skye Tafoya
Women’s Studio Workshop
2019
Ul’nigid is a Cherokee word that means strong. Indigenous artist Rhiannon Skye Tafoya made this book to honor her artist Grandmother, Martha Reed-Bark. This moveable book structure is able to take on multiple renderings and utilizes letterpress printing with Cherokee syllabary metal type and weaving processes similar to those of a traditional Cherokee white oak basket. Ul’nigid’ is a demonstration of love and remembrance. Each technical process portrays strength and delicacy, allowing the artist to communicate a contemporary Indigenous voice with deep influences from her traditional grandmother.
Request to view from the catalog.
Allison Leiahloha Milham
2012
“This project explores the occupied state of Hawai’i; its political past and history of organized resistance. Milham combines music composed by Queen Lili’uokalani, (played and recorded by the artist), with a detailed portrayal of Hawai’i’s story contained within the accompanying album artwork and packaging. The content plays out in an interactive uncovering; an intense discovery of successive layers to be sifted through, understood, and felt.” - Description from Brooklyn.org
Request to view from the catalog.
Thomas Parker Williams
2012
Consists of 14 solo musical voices composed, performed, and recorded by the artist on an electronic wind instrument. Each voice is represented graphically by a moveable panel. Musically, the 14 voices, individually presented on the CD, may be arranged in many different combinations. A visual composition can be created illustrating the musical one using the moveable panels. The video, on the DVD, has the 14 solo voices and three of many possible compositional arrangements with animation of the moveable panels as each voice appears in the composition.
Request to view in the catalog.
The daughter of Lord Byron and Annabelle Milbanke, Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was a 19th century mathematician and scientist, particularly remembered for her work with the early calculating machines of Charles Babbage.
In the book on display here, Lovelace translated an Italian article describing Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, which was able to make numerical calculations. Her “Translator’s Note” and commentary is three times the length of the original Italian article. In her note, she described how the calculating machine could be programmed to compute Bernoulli numbers.
Note G in this “Translator’s Note” is widely regarded as the first computer program.
Request to View from the catalog.
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) is the first female professional astronomer. In her early life, Herschel acted as the housekeeper for her brother, the astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822). She also helped with his research–grinding and polishing mirrors and making calculations from her brother’s observations. William Herschel was the court astronomer to King George III of England, and in 1787, Caroline Herschel was given a salary for her role as William Herschel’s assistant.
In 1786, Herschel became the first woman to discover a comet, described in this treatise. She would discover numerous comets and nebulae throughout her career.
In 1835, Caroline Herschel was elected as one of the first female honorary members of the British Royal Society (along with Mary Somerville).
Request to view from the catalog.
Charles A. Cofield is an architect, city planner, and pioneering disability rights advocate. He is the first black person with a disability to graduate from MIT’s School of Architecture + Planning, receiving his Bachelor of Architecture in 1972, his Master of Architecture in 1973, and his Master of City Planning in 1974. He went on to serve as the Director of the LA Housing Authority for 24 years. Displayed here are the theses for his Master's degrees from MIT, which focus on built environment and innovation as it intersects with access for people with disabilities.
Request to view from the catalog.
Request to view from the catalog.
Authored by A. Barthélemy, former French Consul and Professor Honoraire at the École des Langues Orientales, this Arabic-French dictionary focuses on the dialects of Syria, including Aleppo, Damascus, Lebanon, and Jerusalem. Published in Paris in 1935 by Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, the work was made possible through grants from the Haut-Commissariat de France in Syria and Lebanon. This publication highlights the linguistic richness of the region and serves as a key resource for understanding Levantine dialects of the time.
Request to view from the catalog.
The “Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth” by Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) is the first mathematics book in the west written and published by a woman in her own name. Initially written as a textbook for her younger brothers, the “Analytical Institutions…” is a survey of the principles and methods of algebra, geometry, and calculus. Because of her systematic and thorough approach, it became widely used as a textbook and was later translated into French, German, and English.
Maria Agnesi’s name is associated with “the Witch of Agnesi,” a cubic plane curve defined from two diametrically opposite points of a circle. Dirk Jan Struik wrote: “Some wit in England once translated it 'witch', and the silly pun is still lovingly preserved in most of our textbooks in English language.” This curve was first mentioned by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665). Like other Italian mathematicians, Agnesi called the curve “versiera.” The name “witch of Agnesi” comes from a 1801 mistranslation of Agnesi’s “Analytical Institutions” by the English mathematician John Colson. The Italian word for curve, la Versiera, was mistranslated as l’aversiera, or "evil female spirit."
Request to View from the catalog.
All Paths Native American Major Arcana contains 24 cards and a booklet in a cardboard box. There are two cards added to the typical major arcana: Swiftness and The Buffalo. The booklet states that the deck uses symbolism from the folklore of many indigenous tribes and clans all across the Northern US to depict a new, enlightened perspective on the major arcana. The standard format, nomenclature, and practice of tarot is used to channel old stories from many Native American tribes. The booklet contains keyword explanations of some, but not all, of the symbols, many of which are abstracted drawings of natural phenomena of the physical world. Intuition and imagination help map the conventional system of the major arcana archetypes to preexisting allegorical concepts and symbolic language from Native American traditions. Each illustration is contained within the same patterned border and consists of black line drawings colored in with muted tones on a textured beige background.
Request to view from ArchivesSpace.
This project reimagines the tarot by drawing on Asian American experiences and Asian American studies to reveal the hidden contours of our Asian American emotional, psychic, and spiritual lives, as well as the systems of violence that bear down upon them.
The first edition (2016) replaced the 22 archetypes of the traditional major arcana (e.g., the Empress, the Hierophant, the Wheel of Fortune, etc.) with figures drawn directly from Asian American life--The Migrant, The Foreigner, The Shopkeeper, The Adoptee, The Model Minority, The Desecrated Temple—and invited Asian American artists, writers, and scholars to reinterpret these figures to help us find new ways of making sense of our lives. [Description provided by the Asian American Literary Review website]
Request to view from ArchivesSpace.
The Ghetto Tarot contains a 78-card deck with a booklet in a cardboard box. This deck is a photographic interpretation of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, set in the Haitian ghetto with local residents embodying the tarot archetypes. The photographer Alice Smeets and a group of Haitian artists called Atis Rezistans collaborated to create the photographed scenes. All props in the photos were created by Atis Rezistans using local materials and waste, such as plastic, metal, tires, timber, old dolls and even human bones.
The Ghetto Tarot appropriates the word “ghetto” to contradict the stereotypes associated with racism, poverty, and exclusion and transform the perception of the Haitian ghetto to include the resourcefulness and vibrant community of its citizens. The compositions and symbolism of the cards themselves are rooted in the imagery of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but are reimagined to occupy the environments of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The four minor arcana suits are Brooms, Cups, Machetes, and Pentacles.
Request to view from ArchivesSpace.