History Project

By Laura Thomas



One of our many many many projects for History III: Non-Western Architecture is to create a structural element or a detail ornamental piece of non-western origins. Projects from other students have been Frank Lloyd Wright's concrete building block, mandalas, Japanese joinery, Japanese fence section, miscellaneous detail pieces.
For mine, I wanted something I would keep, something to be displayed. When I moved down here, I left all of my decorative items at home as I only wanted to bring what was absolutely necessary. However after I unpacked, my living room was extremely bare and needed some personality. I went to the mall in Marion and found a oriental shop with all sort of screen printing. I choose 3 black and white prints cuz they were simple but even more so, they were on sale.

As I'm trying to decide what to do for my project, I remember the prints hanging in my living room and decide to make a Chinese folding screen. Folding screens originated in China and were used as canvases for artists, which were then displayed in tea houses, backgrounds for performances, and decoration. It was much later before they were used as a changing screen. Today they are mainly used for decoration purposes and a far cry from their original.

I wanted to build all three panels and create an actual folding screen but as a broke college student I could only make one as it cost $150 for materials. I plan to cut out the remaining decorative pieces on the laser cutter before I leave SIU so in a year or so when I have a job I can finish the other two. Attached is the page I put together for my portfolio. We are to present them on 3-29-2012 and I'm pretty sure they will all be on display for quite some time so make sure to check them out!