Terra Australis Incognita

This slideshow is part of: Selected Undergraduate Design Studio Projects--Thesis 2011-12

Terra Australis Incognita

Jessica Russell

The Overland Telegraph Line, constructed in 1872, ran from the southern to the northernmost tip of Australia. This straight line cut through the heart of Australia's vast desert interior, connecting the country via underwater cable to Java, Indonesia and then across land through Asia and the Middle East into Great Britain. When Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in 1942, the Overland Telegraph Line was severed by the citizens of the city out who feared this infrastructure would be used to take over the country in the event of an invasion. With the cutting of the line, the countries’ voices were severed and history dismembered and disembodied. My thesis design is five theatres that rest on a voided site in the city They function as an archive of memory, a site for stories dispossessed and those yet to be written.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.