ARCH: Utopias and Counter-Utopias

Starting your Research in Architecture

Doing architectural research can be tricky because many key terms (project name, author, context) may vary and change over time. Additionally, because architecture is often a collective endeavor, there are many individuals and organizations to consider. Consider the example of Lincoln Center below:

Project: 
    •    Lincoln Center (complex)
    •    New York State Theater (old)
    •    David H. Koch Center (current)

Author(s): 
    •    Philip Johnson (architect)
    •    John D. Rockefeller III (philanthropist)
    •    Robert Moses (urban planner)
    •    Ezra Stoller (photographer)

Context:
    •    Lincoln Square (former neighborhood)
    •    Upper West Side (current neighborhood)
    •    Urban renewal
    •    Modernism or post-war
    •    Construction: 1959 - 1964

Other research terms to consider:

• Architecture firm (example: Diller Scofidio + Renfro OR DS + R)
• Colloquial terms vs. official names (example: Metropolitan Opera House OR The Met)
• If the building is known by its address try searching numerically and written out (65th Street, OR 65th St.)

[image] Philip Johnson. Lincoln Center, New York State Theater. 1964. https://jstor.org/stable/community.11963556.

Searching in Academic Databases using Boolean Operators and Modifiers

Academic databases work most effectively when using AND, OR, and NOT or including "quotation marks" or asterisks * in your searching. The videos below do a wonderful job unpacking how these tools work.

Using Boolean Operators and Modifiers

• If you know exactly what book (journal, video, etc.) you are looking for, you can search by Title, Author, ISBN, etc.
• To find items about a specific topic, first try a keyword search in All Fields.
• Use "quotation marks" to search for an exact phrase: "The Thief and the Dogs".
• Use * for truncation (to find variant spellings and endings of a word): parent* will find parent, parents, parental, parenthood, etc.; wom*n will find woman, women, womyn, etc.
• For more complex search, use AND and OR (note that AND and OR must be in ALL CAPS for this to work correctly in CLIO):
  • AND finds records which have ALL the search terms you entered.
  • OR finds records which have one of the search terms you entered, as well as records which have more than one of the terms. OR finds MORE.
  • For more help with using AND and OR, check our guide to advanced/Boolean keyword searching.
• Use parentheses ( ) to group terms:  Frankenstein* AND (parent* OR father*)
  
  

Why use keywords?

Keywords are terms that describe the topic you are researching. Keywords can be a people, places, things, ideas, or concepts. We need keywords to effectively search in library academic databases (like CLIO or Jstor). Unlike internet browsers, which have developed to understand full questions written in natural language, academic databases use keywords to locate resources. 

There are no perfect searches when using keywords, which is why it's useful to brainstorm lots of related terms and/or synonyms to locate what you are looking for. For example, an architectural project may be known by a variety of names across languages, cultures, and periods. Having a clear understanding of how terms shift will help you in your search.

Subject Headings

Subject headings offer another way to navigate CLIO. These links can take you to related texts that have been described in similar ways. They can also be a good source for identifying useful related keywords.