Pursuing the Art of Design: Anastasia Kostrominova '09
Anastasia Kostrominova '09 knows the Nexus inside and out. From the desks in the reading rooms to the partitions and lamps that subtly create the Nexus' unique atmosphere, she has seen it all in the studio, and now she watches with us as the Nexus becomes a reality on Barnard's campus. Last year, Anastasia interned at Weiss/Manfredi, the architectural firm that designed the Nexus. As an architecture and music double-major, she found the internship was ideal for her.
Anastasia is particularly interested in industrial design and architectural firms, like Weiss/Manfredi, that incorporate art and infrastructure into their designs. Her Centennial Scholars project, an intensive independent study over several semesters, surveys large-scale residential developments, including those in St. Petersburg, where Anastasia was born, and Ann Arbor, Mich., where she attended high school. Weiss/Manfredi, however, provided more than insight into this student's demanding project. As an intern for 12 months, Anastasia had critical hands-on experiences in a field where practical know-how counts.
Weiss/Manfredi's studio is "one big office with few walls," she says, noting the firm's unique social dynamic: an environment where all the firm's current projects, each in a different stage of completion, were discussed with the staff. "I learned a lot about architecture at lunch," adds Anastasia, which is when she and the architects would discuss interesting articles in the trade magazines, the firm's projects, and life in general. Anastasia was a member of the team at Weiss/Manfredi and a source of information for the architects, who "always wanted my opinion as a student."
Her responsibilities at the firm included modeling the large- and small-scale furniture and fixtures that together create the Nexus. Each model began from scratch, with a team working through the construction process together, from theory to construction. This exchange of ideas is familiar to Anastasia, who recalls the all-hour sessions she and her fellow architecture majors spend in the basement studios at Columbia. And she's confident that when the architectural studios move to their new space in the Nexus, the bonds among the students will move with them.
On a similar note, Anastasia is also devoted to her studies at Manhattan School of Music, where she spends a lot of one-on-one time with her music professors. As a student in Barnard's cross-registration program with Manhattan School of Music, she studies performance as well as music theory and composition. "You have to be prepared for any situation," Anastasia says of these intense sessions with professors who might say to her, "Play me a concert."
"You need to be confident and know your pieces very precisely." Anastasia listens to every kind of music, and particularly looks forward to performing. But she also appreciates music theory classes that help her to understand the compositions she plays more thoroughly and to move beyond other musicians' renditions of more familiar pieces. Musicians may often think of how a piece was played before, muses Anastasia, but when you're on, "you're giving it your own character."
In April 2007, Anastasia was one of only 11 students to perform in the Dr. Shirley Kamell Sacks '47 Master Class, an opportunity for students registered at Barnard and Manhattan School of Music to learn from world-class musicians. Next month, Anastasia will participate in the Sacks Master Class again, and will perform selections from J.S. Bach's French Suite #3 in B minor. She hopes that her choice will focus the audience's attention on her own, personal interpretation of the music.
Her talents have attracted the attention of both her music and her architecture professors, including Kadambari Baxi, associate professor of professional practice in Barnard's department of architecture, who appreciates Anastasia's "inventive work that combines art and architecture." And yet among her demanding schedule of classes, internships, and performances, she finds time to be a board member of the Postcrypt Art Gallery and recently designed a color-by-numbers profile of Columbia President Lee Bollinger to advertise The Pop Show, the gallery's recent night of art, music, and live performances. In addition to distributing postcards with her design, Anastasia and the gallery members displayed a version of the larger-than-life profile in Alfred J. Lerner Hall and invited passers-by to help color President Bollinger.
At Barnard and abroad, Anastasia enjoys creative, hands-on group projects. During the summers of 2004 and 2005, she traveled to rural France and London with Volunteers for Peace, a nonprofit organization that helps young adults to connect with community service projects around the world. This summer, when she travels to Europe and Russia for her Centennial Scholars project, Anastasia plans to visit some of the friends she made through the organization. For the fall semester, she hopes to find an internship with an industrial design firm.
Anastasia is honored to be the recipient of support from The Kahn Fund, an endowed scholarship fund established at Barnard by Linda Parnes Kahn '71 and Alan Kahn. She is grateful for the internship grant provided by the Charlotte Zmora Fahn '59 and Stanley Fahn Internship Fund at the College that supported her during the summer of 2007. The Dr. Shirley Kamell Sacks '47 Master Class and Recital was established by Dr. Leonard Sacks in memory of his wife, Dr. Shirley Kamell Sacks '47.
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