Bloomquist worked with Maya Lin as grad student in architecture

Mitch Bloomquist ’04 recently earned a master’s degree from the Washington University School of Architecture and Urban Design in St. Louis.  At Cornell, he followed the pre-architecture track while majoring in art and minoring in music.What were the highlights of your graduate program?

This fall [2007], I assisted in the installation of Systematic Landscapes, an art installation by Maya Lin, at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis. The best part of the experience, besides meeting Maya Lin, was to touch and become familiar with pieces by an artist that I have studied and read about for many years.

Last fall, along with ten other students, I designed and constructed a public art pavilion in Saint Louis. The project was a collaboration between Grand Center (the arts district in Saint Louis), the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, and Washington University. The semester began with a design competition through which a design was chosen. We then had three weeks to put together construction documents, get a permit, and begin construction. The project was completed in December of 2006 and now stands next to Powell Symphony Hall on Grand Avenue in Saint Louis.

What was best about studying pre-architecture at Cornell?
I was in Italian Renaissance Art History when Dr. Penn-Goetsch inspired my understanding of architecture as the connection between art and life. My experience at Cornell was extremely diverse, yet intensely focused. This is what I value most about my education from Cornell and what I believe prepared me best for my career at Washington University and beyond. For me it was about the connections. The ability to see across disciplines and time to make connections that strengthen one’s understanding of that element and its place in our world (its context and relationships) is what I gained from my time at Cornell. This has proven to be one of the most important tools in my architectural education.

What do you hope to do professionally?
I now work for Novak Design Group in Cedar Rapids. I plan on discovering what it means to be a Midwestern Architect and what the architecture of this region should and wants to be.