For over sixty years\, sources have claime d underground tunnels\, hidden passageways\, and secret rooms in the Neil House\, located at 1842 Indianola Avenue\, concealed people escaping slave ry. However\, it remained unclear whether these features resulted from Und erground Railroad activity or decades of building renovations and utility development.
\nThis work is now shown in an exhibition at Ohio State 's Thompson Library\, which explores the architectural evolution of the Ne il House\, the broader campus landscape from river to ravine\, and Ohio's "Underground Railroad imaginary"&mdash\;the stories shaping how we underst and this history. Through architectural models\, historical documents\, an d archival materials\, visitors encounter the complex relationship between physical evidence and historical memory\, examining what architectural in vestigation can&mdash\;and cannot&mdash\;reveal about spaces of freedom.\n
Karen Lewis's current research visualizes the Underground Railroad\ , providing critical counter-narratives through mapping\, drawing\, and wr iting in support of a forthcoming book proposal\, Architecture of the Underground Railroad.
\nAbout the Presenter:\n
Karen Lewis is an Associate Professor of Architect ure at The Ohio State University whose research and teaching address how v isual and information systems shape the architectural\, territorial and in frastructural space they create and inhabit. She theorizes the entanglemen t of how these spaces rely upon and embed information into their structure s\, systems and organizational logics through design and writing. As an un dergraduate at Wellesley College\, Professor Lewis was introduced to compl ex spatial mapping and multi-dimensional graphics when studying astronomy. She worked in New York as a museum exhibition designer\, user-interface d esigner\, and a toy-design researcher before beginning her Masters in Arch itecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design\, completing her thesis on spatial logistics. \; \;
\nAs Associate Profe ssor of Architecture at The Ohio State University\, Professor Lewis has ex panded her research in the graphics of spatial complexity\, turning her at tention to the stories hidden within archives. She has held fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks\, the Newberry Library\, and through the National Endowmen t for the Humanities to study the 19th-century visualization strategies\, maps and graphic tools of the transcontinental American west\, with a focu s on the visualizations of the Army Corps of Topographic Engineers. Her bo ok\, \;Graphic Design for Architects \;(Routledge 2015) pedagogica lly positions issues of architectural representation through the lens of i nformation design and visual communication\, and is one of the publisher&r squo\;s best performing architecture publications of the 21st \;centur y. Professor Lewis&rsquo\;s current research visualizes the Underground Ra ilroad\, providing critical counter-narratives through mapping\, drawing\, and writing.
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