Xu studying, saving ancient petroglyphs
Petroglyphs are a cultural phenomena dotted amid isolated settings across the Earth. The landscape structures provide insight into the ancient people who once lived here, and the sites offer similarities, despite having been built by diverse cultures that likely never tread the same ground.
Ping Xu, associate professor of architecture, has received a $10,000 grant from the Graham Foundation to identify and compare landscape setting patterns of petroglyphs in the U.S. southwest deserts, Northwest China and Mongolia. For this important research, Xu was chosen the College of Architecture and Planning’s Excellence in Service and Creative Activities recipient for 2006.
“Petroglyphs are valuable heritages for understanding prehistoric peoples,” Xu explains. “This grant will allow me to conduct field investigations in the Helan Mountains and the Yin Mountains in China, and in Chuluut, Mongolia, where their settings are comparable with those in the U.S. southwest.”
The grant will also enable her to verify existing research at sites in New Mexico and Arizona. The comparative study of settings in mutually isolated cultures will help Xu identify landscape-setting patterns and thus the functions and meanings of rock art.
Xu, a faculty member downtown since 1992, focuses her research on integrating architecture with landscape architecture, from small to grand scale, modern to ancient, and Western to Eastern.
By better understanding the design behind the petroglyphs, Xu believes the publication of her research will influence the way the petroglyphs—now threatened by weather, pollution, vandalism and development—are identified, exhibited and protected.
In addition to receiving the research grant, Xu has had five refereed publications and three non-refereed invited publications that were translated into German. She has given two refereed conference presentations and eight invited lectures at universities, including Harvard and TonJi University in Shanghai.
“Ping does a wonderful job of integrating her research into her teaching,” notes Mark Gelernter, CAP dean. “The past few years have been outstanding for Ping Xu’s research on design theory in architecture and landscape design.”