Peirce Lewis: A Landscape Analysis

Reading a landscape is far more complicated than just observing landmarks. There are many different approaches to learning more about a culture through their landscape and Peirce Lewis provides multiple axioms to facilitate this learning. One of Peirce Lewis’s axioms is the axiom of landscape obscurity. This axiom states that most objects in a landscape convey a message, just not in an obvious manner. In order to better understand the landscape it is necessary to create the simple habit of asking questions about the objects that make up the landscape. Mansfield Connecticut has a rich history and ever-changing culture. Reading this landscape with an understanding that all objects convey a message that can be retrieved by asking appropriate questions …show more content…
UConn’s campus is filled with a wide variety of different religious representations in many different forms. Most of these religious representations are in the form of churches or places of worship that are located directly in the Uconn campus in a manner that makes them visible to the public except for one in particular. The Alexander the Great Theater is tucked behind Storrs Center and hidden behind construction. This building is made out of marble with an intricate sundial in the center, an orchestra, a two-story stage, pillars along the outside edge and rows of seating. The complex architecture demonstrates that this is a significant building but there is no information about what it is; the name of this theater is not even displayed. All it took was some basic research about what this structure is to find out that it is the first and only Greek Orthodox Church in an American University. This small amount of information revealed how this community values diversity and representation for all cultures. From this one question stemmed many more. It led to …show more content…
Gampel Pavilion is an iconic landmark on UConn’s campus but it does not reveal a lot of information just from looking at it. It is clear that it is the home arena for the men and women’s basketball teams but this information does not reveal much about the cultural landscape. A landmark as important as this one naturally yields the question of what impact it has on the community. The opening of Gampel Pavilion marks an incredibly historic time period for the University and in particular the athletics department. This was where the success of the men’s team started and there was finally hope of them reaching the Big East tournament. In turn, this dome signifies the new sense of pride it gave to all UConn students. Along with pride, it brought in profit and gave UConn a reputation. Gampel Pavilion ultimately gave UConn athletics a name and talented athletes wanted to be a part of the UConn basketball team. This brought in more funds for improvements to the University and their many departments, which helped attract more students and made UConn the excellent university it is today. Gampel Pavilion is constantly expanded and reconstructed in order to accommodate the ever-growing crowd it draws. All of this information shows the important role that athletics has played in this community. Gampel Pavilion reveals the importance