2020 ARCC Dissertation Award

2020 ARCC Dissertation Award

The ARCC Dissertation Award is offered each year for the best dissertation by a doctoral student from a member school. The award is intended to honor significant new research in architecture and environmental design and to recognize the achievement of an emerging scholar. Given the quality of nominations, three scholars are being recognized this year.

Based on the rigor of her research methods and promise to shape contemporary discourse in cultural heritage preservation and tourism, the ARCC Board of Directors is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2020 ARCC Dissertation Award is AnnaMarie Bliss.

Dr. AnnaMarie Bliss, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research engages tourist-historic places with special emphasis on the effects of adaptation to historically significant sites. Her efforts focus on transient and visiting populations who interact with the world’s most treasured places. She has developed photo methods for architecture and tourism and writes on ethical research practices in design scholarship. Dr. Bliss holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and M.Arch. from Kansas State University. She is co-editor of Place Meaning and Attachment: Authenticity, Heritage and Preservation (Routledge 2020). Dr. Bliss is a past recipient of the Alpha Rho Chi Medal of Honor, the P.E.O. Scholar Award, and the King Medal for Excellence from the ARCC.

Dissertation Title

The Future of the Historic City from Perceptions of the Past: Experience of Place, Authenticity, and Architectural Preservation in Barcelona

Dr. Bliss’ dissertation, “The Future of the Historic City from Perceptions of the Past: Experience of Place, Authenticity, and Architectural Preservation in Barcelona” addresses the perceptions of tourists, knowing that different approaches to preservation and adaptive reuse influence the way visitors interact with, experience, and perceive historic spaces. Using researcher and participant-led photo-elicitation, social media data, tourist interviews, and site observation, Dr. Bliss investigated what factors in historic building renovation affect tourist reactions to the preservation and adaptive reuse efforts at the Museu Picasso and Palau de la Música Catalana. Her research is informed by professional expertise in historic preservation and adaptive reuse, heritage management and human psychological processes that connect people to the environment.