“A Worthy Place”: Durham, Duke, and the World of the 1920s-1930s

World Building at Duke in an Emerging Durham: 1924-1932

Many students, faculty, and staff were part of the broader exploration of Duke and Durham history that took place over the course of the exhibit creation. The Rubenstein Library exhibition was created as part of a Bass Connections Centennial pop-up project that ran in 2023-24 academic year. The project also builds upon prior Bass Connections projects, Building Duke, and Digital Durham, and ongoing work on Visualizing Cities undertaken in the Duke Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab and the Information Science + Studies Program.

Visualizing a city involves both representing the past and understanding the significance of its built environment as it persists today. This project looks at the Durham of 100 years ago through the lens of world-building as an ongoing activity undertaken by both the university and the city, and uncovers some of the conflicts and contradictions inherent in its enactment. It uncovers layers, palimpsests, and traces in the archival record and in the campus and city as we experience them today. Alongside the archival resources showcased in the physical exhibition, we have attempted to reveal some of these elements through the use of 3D modeling, photogrammetry, digital mapping, and interactive storytelling techniques, among others. To convey some of this complexity, this exhibition explores this process of world-building at multiple scales and stages, from the aspirational designs that animated city and university builders, to the social and material effects of the construction process on the campus and in the city, to the lived experience of those whose lives these consequential transformations affected and continue to impact today.