Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546033
an interest in the Arts and Crafts ethos. Designed by an émigré Eliel Saarinen from Finland, who came to the US after placing second in the competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower, it blended elements of Arts and Crafts with a more modern Art Deco influence. When I toured Margaret Atwood through the sets, she linked the hints of Art Deco influence to fascist history. Aesthetically, Art Deco carries attributes like symmetry, geometric order and monumentality present in Italian fascist architecture. In my mind, for contemporary Gilead, Art Deco also recalled a prosperous time for America when they were growing through economic expansion in cities like New York. Eliel Saarinen's design for Kingswood Women's College interested me as a reference point because it felt rooted in traditional ways of making, richly detailed, with graphic geometries, and it felt aspirational. The school also carried a strong female presence, since Saarinen's wife Loja's textiles feature in and inform the design of the school. Today, it is one of the foremost places to study textile arts. When one of the production's Set Designers, while rendering the lobby space for the school build, copied a round light detail on the ceiling in Kingswood, it felt a bit too specific and similar. But I decided to leave it, as a nod to an architect who has become one of my favorites. I've received messages from former students since the show started airing, some of them relating to me their own experience of studying there. Women in Gilead are stripped of literacy and knowledge of anything that might be taught in a normal high school. Instead, they learn how to play a role in society. This includes etiquette, compliance, and how to act as head of a household as a wife. Gilead women are taught lessons on how to use their limited power against each other and how to gain power by making a societal impression. In my research, I noticed that some of the finishing schools which became the first women's colleges eventually became art D. LYDIA ACADEMY BATHROOM. RENDERING BY CHERYL WAN. E. LYDIA ACADEMY CLASSROOM. RENDER BY CHERYL WAN. F. RESEARCH IMAGE OF KINGSWOOD COLLEGE G. LYDIA ACADEMY TEXTILE ARTS CLASSROOM. PRODUCTION STILL. D G E F