Abstract:
With western society becoming ever secular, spaces filled with the heavy magical air of sacredness disappear. This thesis is propelled by looking for tools to create space imbued with an equally emotive, heavy, dark atmosphere but through secular means. This thesis looks to the magical. It is not paranormal magic that is examined here, but an uncanny magic that acts within the bounds of nature. It specifically looks to the era of the late 18th century and 19th century to find this. It first examines literature surrounding the uncanny, and then moves to two theory chapters which find magic in the most popular entertainments of the late 18th, early 19th century: Stage Magic and Gothic Fiction. It examines the spatial and perceptual notions of stage magic, and the spatial and aesthetic notions of the Gothic, both historic and contemporary.
A design for a park in New York City's midtown district explores the ideas discussed in architecture, specifically complexities of transparency illusions and the aesthetics of the Gothic. Magic Architecture, while used to supplant religious magic, is found to be inherently spiritual. It suggests that a magical architecture is created when the audience becomes aware of something more than what they initially perceive, and provides a discussion on how to create this in architecture.
