Discipline: Architecture

Martin Hogue

Discipline: Architecture
Region: Syracuse, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 2005
More: martinhogue.net
Martin Hogue is an associate professor in the department of landscape architecture at Cornell University. Trained as an architect and landscape architect, and working primarily with analytical drawings as a mode of inquiry, his research explores the notion of site as a cultural construction — specifically, the mechanisms by which locations become invested with the unique potential to acquire the designation of "site.” Hogue's most recent work, which centers around camping culture in the United States, interrogates the discrepancies that exist between the deeply cherished American ideal of ruggedness and independence and the desire for an increasingly sophisticated range of utilities and conveniences. Campgrounds indeed commodify into multiple sites — literally tens of thousands of them across the United States — the locus of this singular experience. Each “lone” campsite functions as a stage upon which cultural fantasies can be performed in full view of an audience of fellow campers. In [Fake] Fake Estates, completed in 2006, Hogue proposes a new take on Gordon Matta-Clark’s seminal 1975 Fake Estates project, in which the artist purchased and later documented 14 residual land parcels at auction in Queens for $25 each (a 2.33’ x 355’ long strip of land, a 1.83’ x 1.11’ lot, among others). This project is one of many (Landing Strip, The Site as Project, etc.) that pays tribute to 1960s and 1970s conceptual artists such as Matta-Clark, Robert Smithson, and Walter De Maria, whose site explorations form the basis of contemporary speculation in his work.

Studios

Cheney

Martin Hogue worked in the Cheney studio.

Cheney Studio was given to MacDowell by Mrs. Benjamin P. Cheney and Mrs. Karl Kauffman. Like Barnard Studio, Cheney is a low, broadly massed bungalow. Sited on a steep westward slope, its porches are supported on wooden posts and fieldstone with lattices. Although it still retains its appealing character, the original design of the shingled building…

Learn more