Art and Art History Department Welcomes New Assistant Professor

This fall, Elijah Huge joins the Art and Art History Department as an assistant professor of art.

Huge comes to Wesleyan after four-years working for a large architectural office in New Haven, Conn. At Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, Huge worked on the design team for the Minneapolis Public Library, which opened to the public in May 2006. While working there, he also pursued a series of academic and speculative projects.

As the library neared completion, it was increasingly clear to me that rather than move on to another large-scale, long-term architecture project, I wanted to partake more fully in the intellectual vibrancy and open exchange of ideas that happens in a university environment, Huge says.

In addition, Huge knew he wanted to continue design work and remain active in architectural practice. An opening in Wesleyans Art and Art History Department was the perfect opportunity.

In light of these varied professional interests, Wesleyan presented an ideal opportunity: encouragement to pursue my own creative work while engaging bright, lively minds in the studio, and interacting with Wesleyan’s outstanding Art and Art History faculty, Huge says. The fact that I would be working in the Center for the Arts a wonderful collection of buildings – was icing on the cake.

At Wesleyan, Huge is teaching Architecture I and Studies in Contemporary Urbanism, which explores the physical and environmental design conditions that shape the built environment.

Huge holds a bachelor’s of art in architecture and history of art from Yale University, a master’s of architecture from the Yale School of Architecture. He also attended Princeton University School of Architecture as a Princeton University Fellow and Merit Scholar. While pursuing his degree at Yale, Huge worked as a teaching fellow and teaching assistant for several architectural design and history of art classes. In addition, he was selected through a competitive application process as an editor for Perspecta, The Yale Architectural Journal. Titled “Building Codes,” this issue was published in 2004 by MIT Press.

Also while completing his graduate studies, Huge started an architectural research group with a classmate to pursue speculative projects and design competitions. The group has met and worked continuously since its founding, garnering a number of awards, including an honorable mention for their entry to an ideas competition for the Highline, a 1.5 mile long elevated rail structure on the west side of Manhattan. Their entry was exhibited in Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Terminal over the summer of 2002. In the spring of 2005, Huge and the group won an international design competition for a new 26-acre park in Buzzards Bay, Mass. Development of the parks design is currently underway.

Huge’s professional background contains stints at several architectural firms prior to working as a senior designer for Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. He worked as a designer for Turner Brooks, Architect of New Haven, on the Nicholas/DuPont House, West Yarmouth, Great Island, Mass. He held internships at Behnisch & Partner, Architekten and Buerling-Schindler, Architektenin Stuttgart, Germany; and Little & Associates, Architects in Charlotte, N.C. He helped design the Lothar-Gunther Buchheim Museum, Bernried am Starnberger See in Germany and the Daimler-Benz Exhibition Pavilion for the 1999 Detroit International Auto Show in Detroit, Mich.

In addition, Huge is currently on the City of New Havens City Planning Commission, and has formerly served as a commissioner for the City of New Haven Development Commission and as a Yale University Presidents Public Service Fellow for The Community Builders, Inc. of New Haven. He was an exhibition coordinator for the “Architecture and Revolution: Charles Moore and Architecture at Yale in the 60s exhibit in New Haven.

Huge lives in New Haven with his daughter and wife.

In addition to teaching, he is starting his newest design project — designing a home for a Web designer in New Haven.