<p> Shirai Seiichi&rsquo;s education in the context of the interwar events influenced his path and molded him into a defender of idealism. Starting from the early evolution of his ideas, Shirai&rsquo;s significant concepts are outlined to show how they stood apart from and challenged the Japanese modernist debates over the architectural responses to war and industrialization. Examples of Shirai&rsquo;s early work along with surrounding historical events show how Shirai&rsquo;s perceptions of the use of space and its manifestation in architecture, based on Kantian ideas of a priori creation, contradicted orthodox modernist architectural theory and practice. Shirai&rsquo;s evolving theories and their impact on his design are introduced through his early training and related projects. However, it is his unrealized plan for the Genbakud? that is analyzed as primary evidence for the idea that Shirai was the only mid-twentieth century Japanese architect who could effectively express the sad destiny of the nuclear age. Last, specific examples of Shirai&rsquo;s mid to late career work to demonstrate how his conceptual framework evolved. Interviews, commentary, and theoretical analyses of his works show his unique trajectory and role in contrast to his modernist colleagues, and provide insight into Shirai&rsquo;s investigation into the universality and potential of the human spirit (fuhen no anima). Finally, recent discussion about constructing the Genbakud? based on Shirai&rsquo;s blueprints raise the idea that Shirai&rsquo;s early ideals are now ready to be presented in the post-modernist age.</p>

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<p> The goal of this dissertation is to write the theory of organic architecture which Wright himself did not write. This is done through a comparison with GWF Hegel&rsquo;s philosophy of art to help position Wright&rsquo;s theory of organic architecture and clarify his architectural aesthetic. Contemporary theories of organicism do not address the aesthetic basis of organic architecture as theorized and practiced by Wright, and the focus of this dissertation will be to fill part of this gap. Wright&rsquo;s organic theory was rooted in nineteenth-century Idealist philosophy where the aim of art is not the imitation of nature but the creation of beautiful objects which invite contemplation and express freedom. Wright perceived this quality in Japanese art and wove it into his organic theory. </p><p> This project is organized into three main categories from which Wright&rsquo;s own works and writings of organic architecture are framed, two of which are affinities of his views and one which, by its contrast, provides additional definition. The second chapter, Foundation, lays the philosophical or metaphysical foundation and is a comparison of Hegel&rsquo;s philosophy of art, including his Romantic stage of architecture, with Wright&rsquo;s own theory. The third chapter, Formalism, relates the affinity between Japanese art and Wright&rsquo;s own designs. Three case studies are here included, showing their correlation. The fourth chapter, Filter, contrasts early twentieth-century Modernist architecture with Wright&rsquo;s own organicism. This provides a greater definition to Wright&rsquo;s organicism as it takes clues from Wright&rsquo;s own sense of discrimination between the contemporary modernism he saw and his own architecture. These three chapters lead to the proposal of a model theory of organic architecture in chapter five which is a structured theory of organic architecture with both historical and contemporary merit. This serves to provide a greater understanding of Wright&rsquo;s form of the organic as an aesthetically based system, both in historic context, and as relevant for contemporary discourse. </p><p>

This thesis examines the architectural work of Sir Ernest George and his partners from C. 1860 to 1922. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to George's early life, pupillage and training, the partnership with Thomas Vaughan and the establishment and consolidation of practice. George and Vaughan's first country house commission, Rousdon, Devon and associated works for Sir Henry Peek are considered in detail. Chapter 2 examines the Peto family and its associations, noting influences on George through his partnership with Harold Ainsworth Peto. Reference is made to the effects of the Petos on the pattern of patronage of the firm. George's early work in the Queen Anne style is introduced through an examination of the circumstances surrounding his commission for premises for Messrs Thomas Goode and Company, London; associations with the Temperance Movement, and the work for the 4th Eatl of Onslow in Surrey are also considered. Chapter 3 investigates the firm's connections with Peto Brothers, Builders, and their subsequent collaborative work at Harrington and Collingham Gardens in Kensington, London. In Chapter 4, George and Peto's work during the period from 1882 to 1892 is examined; works executed in terra-cotta are grouped together, as are works for new and established clients, commissions abroad and London work. In Chapter 5, six country houses which can readily be used to illustrate particular aspects of George and Peto's work have been singled out for investigation. Chapter 6 deals with George's work executed with his third partner, Alfred Yeates. Both their domestic and general work is examined against the background of stylistic debate and change. Chapter 7 provides six case studies of country houses by George and Yeates which serve to illustrate different aspects of their practice, and stylistic vocabulary. Chapter 8 examines George and Yeates's competition entries and two major commissions, for Golders Green Crematorium, London and Southwark Bridge, London. Chapter 9 discusses the office of Sir Ernest George from C. 1860 to 1920, describing office practice, and giving an account of George's pupils and assistants. Chapter 10 examines George's contributions to public and professional life, provides a resume of biography and a conclusion. The catalogue gives detailed references to all the works identified as being executed by Sir Ernest George and his partners between C. 1860 and 1922.

This thesis is concerned with the way that architecture, (that is space, buildings, cities and urban environments), has been and continues to be speculated upon through a rich palette of narrative methods. Taking NATØ, the group of young architects led by Nigel Coates that emerged from the Architectural Association in the early 1980s as its subject matter, the thesis questions how architectural production is able to narrate and the modes and methods it employs. The research reveals echoes and resemblances between NATØ projects and a wider artistic, filmic and literary culture that emerged from the specific political, social and physical conditions of 1980s London. Personal archives of original NATØ material – including drawings, photographs, magazines, ephemera and writings – are exposed for the first time. Combined with personal interviews with NATØ members and other significant individuals, the narrative traces the group’s evolution and development at the AA in Unit 10 in the late 1970s, to their active period between 1983-1987. The thesis also examines the key influences of Coates and his early work: exploring his relationship with Bernard Tschumi, the influence of a period spent in New York and his association with diverse artists and filmmakers in London. As such, the research presents the first detailed examination of NATØ and produces original insight into the territory of architectural narrativity. The thesis contextualises this moment of narrative architecture with the evolution of narratology over the same period – a discipline whose changing consideration of narrative in the 1980s expanded from a literary basis to take in a broad range of media. Engaging with contemporary narratology, the thesis employs concepts and terms from narrative studies to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of how narrative functions in architectural production. The thesis also constitutes a history of postmodernism that represents an alternative to the dominant architectural mode, considering NATØ’s output as a subcultural form of architectural production that drew on techniques of bricolage, montage, fragmentation, polyvocality and defamiliarisation. Framing NATØ’s work through an understanding of the way in which their use of medium evolved alongside their conceptual ideas, the thesis considers the material in relation to four distinct areas, each constituting a chapter: performance and video, the drawing, the magazine and the exhibition. Chapter 1 on performance and video exposes the influence of both Tschumi and a pivotal year spent in New York on Coates, and the development of his ideas from student to co-tutor at the AA in the late 1970s. The chapter proposes a move from the highly cerebral and literary approach of Tschumi, to one concerned with the presentness of direct experience via video. Chapter 2 takes the architectural drawing as its subject, showing how Coates evolved the drawing in his unit at the AA in the early 1980s, and how in turn NATØ employed the drawing as an 8 expressive narrative medium. Chapter 3 considers the group’s self-published magazine, NATØ, produced between 1983-85, drawing parallels with street style publications i-D and The Face, of the same era. The chapter proposes the graphic design of the magazine as a medium through which NATØ developed the explorations of the drawings into a more complex form – positing the idea of the mise-en-scène of the magazine. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the apotheosis of NATØ’s output: the exhibitions Gamma City at the Air Gallery (London, 1985), and Heathrow part of ‘The British Edge’ at the Institute of Contemporary Art, (Boston, 1987). Taking the ideas established in the previous chapter into three dimensions, the chapter proposes the installation as a microcosm of the narrative experience of the city that NATØ sought – evoked through an embodied drift through space, and the replacement of the architectural scale model with the auratic object or stimulator artefact. Concluding, the framework of narrative architecture set out in the thesis is proposed as both a period preoccupation and a way of thinking about spatial narrativity more broadly. It critical assesses the potential for such architectural narrativity to be designed and built, finding the truest form of narrative architecture emerging from the city condition itself. Finally, the conclusion proposes a lineage of projects and ideas that have evolved since the late 1980s whose concepts represent a continuation of NATØ’s preoccupations.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Art History." Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-327).

Before the American small town was enshrined as an ideal, it was a space of dynamic and pioneering progressive reform, a narrative that has been largely untold in histories of professional planning and landscape history. Archival research shows that village improvement was not simply a prequel to the City Beautiful in the years following the 1893 Chicago Expo, but a rich and complex history that places the residential village at the center of debates about the middle landscape as a civic realm comprised of complimentary and oppositional pastoral and urban worldviews. The second half of the nineteenth century saw an extensive movement in village improvement that affected the physical, economic, and social infrastructure of rural settlements of all sizes in every region of the country. As a concept referenced by planners working on comprehensively-designed suburban communities, the small town ideal has never been historicized with respect to the history and theory of the nineteenth century village landscape improvements. This study broadens the study of village improvement to include the history of ideas and debates surrounding rural development on the national and local level between the 1820s and 1880s and, in doing so, argues that the discussion-born theory of village improvement within a national rural reform movement led by some of the nineteenth century’s most respected and influential reformers including B.G. Northrop (education), Col. George Waring (sanitation), N.H. Egleston (conservation), Isabella Beecher Hooker (women’s rights), and F.L. Olmsted, Sr. (landscape architecture) was modeled on the Laurel Hill Association in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and that the local practice of this one society over the same period together comprised the most active sustained discussion about the civic society and physical infrastructure of rural settlements in American history. This narrative tracks reform movements in rural settlements over several decades, beginning with landscape gardening through sanitation and up to the professionalization of city planning and the country life movement. Planning veered from broadly conceived urban pastoralism and multi-disciplinary rural improvement toward preservation planning. This trend was in line with an associated shift from planning as a series of fine-grained locally led practices to expert-driven professionalized planning as grandiose comprehensive vision. Keywords: village improvement, civic improvement, beautification, social capital, rural residence, small town, main street, comprehensive planning, sprawl, neotraditional design (NTD), new urbanism, transit oriented development (TOD), suburbia, city planning, nostalgia, pastoral, pastoral cities, urban pastoral, landscape, urban history, Beecher, Egleston, Eggleston, Northrop, Olmsted, Waring, Rockwell.

Roman round temples are usually discussed either in the context of round buildings like baths and mausolea or on a case-by-case basis. Both approaches fail to reveal what makes round temples a distinct architectural type and moreover, what reasons can account for their use throughout the Roman world. By examining round temples from the Republic, when they are first attested, to the early fourth century AD, this thesis aims to explain why the round form had such a lasting appeal. It follows a chronological approach, discussing the evidence for individual temples and situating them within their historical, social, topographical, and architectural contexts. In a comparative analysis, the building components, materials, techniques, decorative details, and proportions employed by round temples are outlined to reveal influences on their design. The round temples discussed in this study are concentrated in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. While the earliest examples in Rome draw on Italic traditions, from the late Republic, round temples begin to reflect Greek trends. Greek tholoi and the Greek decorative repertory, balanced by Roman developments in design, have a lasting influence on round temples. Based on tholoi, scholars have assumed that Roman round temples honored Vesta and divinized heroes. While they were celebrated with a few examples, the majority were dedicated to other gods and goddesses. As a result, religious, social, topographical and aesthetic reasons are proposed to explain the enduring appeal of round temples. Like the motivations behind their foundations, the plans, dimensions, and proportional relationships employed by round temples are noted for their diversity. For their individuality and inventive spirit, round temples make a significant contribution to the Roman architectural repertory.

Understanding School Buildingscompletes a study ofmodern Swedish school buildings and the ideas behind them. In aseries of case studies of seven schools built between 1953 and2001, changes in architecture have been found to reflectchanges in the ideas and practices of teaching and learning.The study has raised a number of questions, regarding currentdemands on school buildings. Problems and qualities of schoolbuildings demands on school buildings, problems and qualitiesof school buildings form the 1950s, 60s and 70s, problems foundand qualities lost in the process of changing such buildings,and the motives of architects involved in the design ofschools. In practical terms, the research method has includedobservations of buildings in use, interviews with directors,staff and pupils as well as architects, and the study ofliterature, documents and architectural drawings. Intheoretical terms, different perspectives of architecture havebeen discussed and applied, from the phenomenological approachof Norberg-Schulz to the space syntax theory of Hillier, frompractical, social use of symbolic meaning and aesthetics.Finally, some philosophical themes on art, architecture andsociety, from Dewey, Shusterman, Scruton and Sartre have beenintroduced. Partly diverging from the case study model of Yin, the studydoes not simply aim at verifying or falsifying a hypothesis. Ata point in the study, each case is explained in a morenarrative manner. In the final analysis, understanding schoolbuildings in shown to require a multifaceted view. A schoolbuilding must be seen in a historic/political perspective, as atool for teaching and learning and as the life-world ofteachers and pupils. In cases discussed, a school building isalso the object of strong pedagogical or social intensions ofan architect. In other term, a study of school buildings mustbe a study in pragmatist aesthetics. Keywords:School building, architectural theory, recentsocial history of architecture, intention, experience,pragmatist aesthetics

This research examines the hypothesis that more historic wrought iron minor architectural details (for example hinges, latches and brackets) survive than is often realised. It proves that they are often some of the oldest material in a building, having specific characteristics which are the result of their working and which influence design. Consequently, special consideration needs to be given to their conservation. They also demonstrate the skills of many unknown artisans who deserve greater recognition and appreciation for their roles in the country’s architectural and social history. The work is divided into three parts. The first part examines the development of the blacksmith’s craft, referring specifically to minor architectural details, the materials from which they were made, design development and the individuals involved in the craft. The second is a survey of a representative sample of extant historic ironwork details in Lincolnshire, examining their age, type and style, with an overview of their condition. The third is an evaluation of past and present methods of conservation of this material. The appendices show illustrations of some of the items discussed, and a gazetteer of historic ironwork identified in the survey. The original funding for this study was specifically for research in a field concerned with historic crafts or materials, with particular reference to Lincolnshire. It therefore concentrates on extant examples of wrought ironwork in the county from c1200 AD to c1860 AD, principally the work of individual craftsmen prior to their increased absorption into mass production industries. The significant role played by Cistercian monks and lay brothers of Lincolnshire monasteries in the development of the craft is considered, and some of the few records of Lincolnshire smiths which survive in local archives are examined, producing a greater insight into their involvement in this work than has been published previously.