John McMorrough

Annual Birthday Portrait, courtesy of @waltermcmorrough

THESIS MICROCOSM Review 1/4 (“Speed Date”) In the first half of the winter term, the MICROCOSMS thesis group works in a typical studio format, developing representations sufficient to fully define a design as the means by which to define a thesis (ideation following production, rather than preceding it). These efforts are organized around a series of formal reviews, each iteration of which is considered “complete” (i.e., a set of representations and arguments) to the extent time permits. In this first review, students meet individually with three critics over the course of the hour to present their initial (2-week) thesis proposals, which include a subject (Macrocosm), a program (Microcosm), and an architectural approach (Building). Projects presented(in order) by Brianna Manzor, Chris Meade, Frank Michel, Talia Morison-Allen, Michael Natinsky, Emily Naumann, Jacob Schichman, Ruixue Yang, Yihan Yang, Jack Barbour, Jacob Brookhouse, Linde Ji Invited critics included Angela Cho, Tess Clancy, Jacob Comerci, Gabriel Cuellar, Nitzan Farfel, Adam Fure, Francesca Eugenia Mavaracchio, Julia McMorrough, Meredith Miller, Thom Moran, Ana Morcillo Pallares, Jonathan Rule, and Antje Steinmuller​

THESIS MICROCOSMS [ARCH 662: Thesis - Winter 2026 - University of Michigan] A microcosm (such as architecture) functions as a totality at a manageable scale, both representing and manifesting. As a part that acts as a whole, it addresses multiplicities and finds in sufficiency its potential (and limit). In the winter term, the MICROCOSMS thesis group begins in a studio format, developing representations sufficient to describe a design ("Building Media"), and concludes in a laboratory, where each thesis is produced as a conceptual (and literal) model ("Media Architecture"). Each thesis will be determined by each student individually, in consultation with the faculty advisor. Images: Superstudio, Talia Morison-Allen, Chris Meade, Ruixue Yang, Francis Michel, Jacob Shichman, Michael Natinsky, Vieniq Romero, Brianna Lauren, Yihan, Yang, Linde Ji, Jack Barbour, Jacob Brookhouse, Emily Naumann Sound: Superstudio. “Supersurface: An Alternative Model for Life on Earth.” 1972. Audiovisual work, part of Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

ARCHITECTURE re:ACTs - Descriptions / Disciplines / Developments [ARCH 572: Architecture Criticism and Theories - Winter 2026 - University of Michigan] What are the sufficient qualities of a building? Is it sturdy? Is it beautiful? Does it represent society? What are their costs, both financial and planetary, and what do they provide in terms of access and affordance? Building problems (formal, material, social, and environmental) constitute an ever-changing set of opportunities and dilemmas, out of which architecture arises not as a static set of formulations but as an emergent entity whose agency is never complete (nor entirely absent). The criticism and theory of architecture both document and project the conditions of its possibility. Drawing on key concepts in architectural criticism and theory, this course articulates a genealogical context and operative framework for the ongoing conceptualization of architectural production. ARCH 672 is a required course for students in the Master of Architecture program, but it is also open to others. Image: “Utopia Envisioned and Built,” by Gizem Deniz Güneri, 2017

Custom design solution for Christmas. The issue, Bagel’s love of chewing (books) means that the bottom shelves have been covered with a makeshift protective layer of mylar and duct tape for years. The solution “Hinged” a system of fabricated plexiglass operable barriers that keep one voracious consumer of books at bay, while allowing the other to see the goods. Another in a series of “apt-plications” by @juliamcmorrough of @studioapt_design

“Oneirological Cinema Architecture (The Lathe of Heaven),” presented at the Architecture & Film Symposium (On Affect), Kent State University, October 25, 2025. In the 1980 TV movie “The Lathe of Heaven,” the protagonist’s dreams can change the world, literally. In their ability to reconfigure reality, these dreams are both a resource (offering new worlds) and refutation (in the contradictions of the worlds created). Although the original story by Ursula K. Le Guin takes place in Portland, Oregon, for cost reasons, the film’s production was relocated to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to utilize the area’s then-new architecture as a setting. Although not purpose-built for filming, in their cinematic replication, these buildings are reenvisioned to fabricate new realities. As an artifact of multiple circumstances—speculative fiction, film production, and corporate architecture —“The Lathe of Heaven” broadcasts a possible world to come, depicting wonder and dread in perpetual flux, a fever dream of the approaching postmodern turn. The film’s multiplicitous totality describes parallel and divergent motivations to forge potential relations between the actual and the possible, elaborating the conundrums of “dreams.” Thank you to the symposium organizers Jon Yoder (@jondavidyoder ) and Vahid Vahdat (@3dscript ) for providing the opportunity to share this work.

ARCHITECTURE THESIS: Microcosms [ARCH 600: Thesis Seminar – Fall 2025 – University of Michigan] Microcosms (like architecture) act as totality at reasonable scale, both representing and manifesting. As a part that acts like a whole, it addresses multiplicities and finds in sufficiency its potential, and limit. Taking the premise of “building as microcosm” for a starting point, this section will begin in seminar format, studying speculative examples from architecture and film (“Possible Worlds”), followed by a workshop applying those insights to envision contexts for exploration (“World Building”). The winter term will start as a studio, developing representations to sufficient to describe a design (“Building Media”), and conclude with a practicum that developing the thesis as a video/model (“Media Architecture”). Each microcosm thesis will be determined individually by the student, in consultation with their faculty advisor. “Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Image: Edward Steed, The New Yorker, December 15, 2014.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: Now and Then [ ARCH 413: History of Architecture [3G] - Fall 2025 -University of Michigan] This course presents a history of architecture through stylistic periodization, emphasizing the change and continuity within building practices from ancient origins to recent manifestations, developing a vocabulary of concepts that range from the constitutive to the transitory (form, construction, culture, and economics, but also tympanum, pilasters, and other opus incertum). In addition to presenting the history of architecture, the course develops a historiographic perspective on the study of architecture, including periodization and the nature of history itself. Styles and topics covered include: Architecture, A History (Architecture History Styles, Architecture History Models), Prehistoric Architecture (Early Structures, Egyptian), Classical Architecture (Greek, Roman), Medieval Architecture (Byzantine, Gothic), Renaissance Architecture (Renaissance, Baroque), Revival Architecture (Neoclassical, Eclecticism), Late 19th Century Architecture (Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau), Early 20th Century Architecture (Functionalism & Formalism), Inter-War Architecture (Modernism, Nationalism), Post-War Architecture (Brutalism, High-Tech), Late 20th Century Architecture (Post Modernism, Deconstructivism), Architecture, A Future (Ends of Architecture). Three readings are required before each class: one on the contextualizing of the style/period (from a layman’s survey), one historical survey (each described by a different architectural historian), and a theoretical reflection on the issues of the times (either contemporaneous or retrospective). The study of architectural styles, as well as styles of history, is intended to enable future interpretation (analysis of historical material) and conjecture (creation of new work). Image: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Fragments of the Marble Plan of Ancient Rome, 1756.

In Winter 2025, ARCH 533: Possible Worlds will again focus on the ideas, images, and ideologies floating around “spaceships” and other unworldly environments. The requisite self-sufficiency of these wholly created environments, outside presumptive support networks of the world as given, embodies the potential (and impossibility) of design to achieve escape velocity from the gravity of earthly constraints and concerns. In the novelty of proposing such extraterrestrial architectures, the exigencies of bodies in space have generated an array of technological responses, and in parallel, the imagination of such settings has also precipitated numerous representational innovations. Seminar participants review weekly texts (readings, projects, other media), write weekly topic responses, and contribute to collective discussions regarding issues raised. The course culminates in a term-length research project, an analytical case study of an assigned “world” considered as both real (within the story logic) and imagined (as recorded in set and setting), including: “XB 1” (Ikarie XB 1 / Journey to the End of the Universe, 1963), “Aniara” (Aniara, 2018), “Dark Star” (Dark Star, 1974), “Solaris Research Station” (Solaris, 1972), and “Valley Forge” (Silent Running, 1972),” among others. Image: Jack Kirby, Cover, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Marvel Comics, 1976).

“Oscillating between being a technical problem, a disciplinary issue, and a cultural question over its long history, drawing has repeatedly defined artistic achievement and scholarly debate. In pursuing resolution, these competing significances rehearse the question of means and ends, not by some essential truth, but rather by the play of these irresolvable tensions.” Text: John McMorrough (@john_mcmorrough ), “The Ends of Drawing,” (2024). Illustration: Julia McMorrough (@juliamcmorrough ), “PNG Image File of Sketchup Book Model.” Figure: Pieter Jan de Vlamynck (Belgian, 1795–1850), after Joseph-Benoît Suvée (Belgian, 1743–1807), “The Invention of Drawing,” after 1791. Book: Andrew Kudless (@matsysdesign ) and Adam Marcus (@radadam ), Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation (Applied Research & Design, 2024). #Shadow #Scheme #Medium #Cave #Studio #Factory #Office #Palimpest #Revision

Architecture-isms: Histories of Ideation & Ideology [ARCH 413: History of Architecture [3G] - Fall 2024 -University of Michigan] “When the past speaks, it always speaks as an oracle: Only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life What are the sufficient qualities of a building? Is it sturdy? Is it beautiful? Is it ecological? Does it represent society? What are its costs (financial and planetary), and what does it afford (access and allowance)? Building problems are an ever-changing set of mutually negotiated possibilities and dilemmas, out of which architecture arises not as a specific set of codes or positions but rather as an emergent epistemology. The study of architecture’s history elaborates on this condition of continuances, inversions, and rejections, where its agency is never entirely complete nor absent. This course introduces architecture’s history and examines developments from ancient origins to recent examples: Architecture, A History (Outlines, Architecture History Models), Prehistoric Architecture (Early Structures, Egyptian), Classical Architecture (Greek, Roman), Medieval Architecture (Romanesque, Gothic), Renaissance Architecture (Renaissance, Baroque), Revival Architecture (Neoclassical, Eclecticism), Late 19th Century Architecture (Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau), Early 20th Century Architecture (Functionalism & Expressionism I & II), Inter-War Architecture (Modernism, Nationalism), Post-War Architecture (Brutalism, High-Tech), Late 20th Century Architecture (Post Modernism, Deconstructivism), Architecture, A Future (Ends of Architecture). #architecture, #-isms, #history

As of July 15, I conclude my six-month term as interim architecture program chair @taubmancollege . Like any shift worker, I worked with two ambitions: to maintain and to enhance. Maintaining the program’s operation was a collaborative effort that included planning for next year (including finalizing the teaching schedule for 2024-25), concluding this year’s work (which includes plans for the final review and graduation), and addressing the varied litany of matters arising (student and faculty issues, coordination with college efforts, and many other matters large and small). The enhancement took the form of programming (of both the building and events), structure (in support of emergent activities), and representation (of the work and workings of students and faculty). In short, it involved understanding the program’s culture as an architectural project. These various initiatives included the organization of program processes and paperwork to increase its legibility and accessibility (including the creation of a shared program drive documenting and coordinating all records), expansion of the architecture program lectures into a thematic series (“Building Culture”) to highlight and promote discourse, and the “invisible work” to streamline program and college processes across an array of areas (building space planning, professor of practice role, program collaboration with college communications, redefining staff roles, among many others) support the degree directors (BS, MArch, MUD, MSDT, PhD) in modeling a connection between in their duties and highlighting their role as a manifestation of authority and responsibility. The focus was on embodying the possibility that architecture has always been an affirmation of the potential to make and make anew—as a program, project, and discipline. Image: Still from video lecture “Possible Buildings…Babylon, Bigness, and Beaubourg” from “Possible Worlds: Space” (Winter 2022 Seminar) with background image “Tower of Babel” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 (Painting, Oil on Panel, 1,140 mm x 1,550 mm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria).