The graduate thesis project at USC begins with a thorough documentation and investigation of a significant architectural project as a precedent for one own’s thesis project in the following spring semester. This thesis research, conducted over one semester precedes the thesis project Architecture of Peculiarity and analyses and critiques the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) by Lina Bo Bardi for its architecture, its contribution to the architectural discourse and its success and contribution to society as an influence on change and culture. Beginning with a detailed documentation of its as-built condition, this research identifies the central parti of the architect, as a move to simultaneously raise and sink the museum above and below the ground. In doing so, Lina Bo Bardi creates a large open plaza that establishes a unique relationship between the museum and its city, demonstrating an architect heavily invested in the power of architecture as a social agency. It thereby becomes the precedent for a thesis which explores the social, cultural and political potentialities of architecture.