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The thesis started as a study of the 'Golden Age' of Modern Architecture in Eretz-Israel, its time-span covering the years of the British Mandate in Palestine (1918-1948). During that period, architectural practice flourished in the country despite civic unrest and impending political changes. In the course of research, it rapidly became apparent that the current historiography covers ultra avant-garde architectural experiments of the time - which are fundamental to the Israeli identity - but tends to overlook, dismiss and marginalise all other trends that co-existed in parallel with them. This produces a puzzling discrepancy between the story as told so far and the image retrieved by material evidence. This study therefore proposes a critique of the prevailing historiography of architecture in Palestine-Eretz-Israel during the British Mandate period. It explains why the mainstream approach has been so narrow, looking at the reasons for the emergence of the present distorted representation; this is based on extensive new research. By broadening the canon of Modernism as represented in the existing literature, the thesis attempts to reassess that narrow approach and begins to create a more accurate image of the architecture of the period. In recent years, it has been considered necessary to rewrite the history of planning and design for Europe and the U.S.A. during the interwar period. This thesis explains why it is now time to extend this revision to Palestine/Israel. It also maintains that a broadening of the modern canon will enable us to reconstruct in a better way a defining moment in the history of modern architecture, one that was much more heterogeneous and pluralistic than has been formerly thought.

This thesis examines the roles played by historic reconstructions in Canada: the intent of the project proponents, and the reception of such projects. To establish a framework for this analysis, the roles of historic reconstructions in France, Britain and the United States, three countries where heritage conservation activity began much earlier, are first examined. Sites included in this part of the thesis include: in France, Viollet-le-Duc's reconstruction work at Vezelay, Saint-Sernin, and Carcassonne; in Britain, Burges' Castell Coch, and the twentieth-century reconstructions of Castell Henllys and the Globe Theatre; and, in the United States, the Revere House, Fort Ticonderoga, Colonial Williamsburg, and New Echota. With the French, British and American use of historic reconstructions as a reference, four detailed case studies, examining Canadian sites, is presented. The first case study is the reconstruction of the Habitation at Port Royal, originally constructed in 1605, by French colonists. The second study considers two reconstructions, Fort George, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Place Royale, Quebec, which represent British and French heritage, respectively. The third reconstruction discussed is the town of Louisbourg. The fourth study is the proposed reconstruction of the Africville Church, a building destroyed in 1967 in the name of urban renewal, but a continuing symbol of the African-Canadian community within which it was located. Analysis of these sites has been undertaken with considerable reference to the current discussion of the relationship between history and collective memory, especially the work of Pierre Nora (in France), Raphael Samuel (in Britain), and John Bodnar (in the United States).

We often listen to speech in an imperfect environment, with noise and reverberation; there will be voices around us, in complex acoustics. In this “cocktail-party” situation (Cherry 1953) listeners are helped by two binaural processes to segregate the desired voice from the competing noise: Better-Ear listening (BE) and Binaural Unmasking (BU). The aim of this thesis was to develop a model capable of efficiently predicting the benefits of BE and BU from Binaural Room Impulse Responses (BRIR). The developed model is a computationally efficient version of that created by Lavandier & Culling (2010) that predicts speech reception thresholds which include the benefit of binaural-unmasking, as explained by Equalization-Cancellation theory (Durlach 1963, 1972), and the benefit of better-ear listening, through Target-to-Interferer ratio analysis. The model accurately predicted a number of appropriate data sets from the literature that measure speech reception thresholds as a function of target and interferer source locations. Application of the model to a number of novel situations allowed environmental factors affecting intelligibility to be predicted and explored. In most situations, the effect of reverberation is to reduce the level of BE and BU, except when the listener is close to the interfering source, but this is when the benefits are needed the most. Depending on the spatial separation and source distances, the inclusion of multiple interferers again reduces the benefits in the majority of situations. To examine the benefits of head orientation a number of configurations were tested, whilst rotating the listener relative to the sound field. Benefits exceeding 12 dB can be achieved through modest rotations, particularly showing the benefits of BE. According to the model, the current literature on the benefits of bilateral cochlear implantation has underestimated that benefit by employing sub-optimal spatial configurations; using optimum orientations the model predicts an extra 6 dB of benefit being available to the listener. In a simulated restaurant situation, the model predicts that orientation of a table can affect the ability of a listener by up to 5 dB.

The initial aim of this thesis is to reconstruct, through drawings, the original design of the spire from Temple 45, a ruined Latina temple from the Buddhist, World Heritage Site of Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh. The hundreds of un-analysed architectural fragments from the temple that survive on site are the primary data for this project: a veritable three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of pieces waiting to be studied and reassembled. In order to turn the mass of architectural data collected at Sanchi into a virtual reconstruction of the spire from Temple 45, an authentic and detailed method of Latina spire design must be used. Finding such a method, one ratified by the Vastusasastras, by the shape of surviving Latina superstructures, and by the proportions of Temple 45 and its spire courses, forms the second, broader research question of the thesis. Although Latina temples are a seminal feature of North Indian temple architecture, scholars' explanations of how they were designed are inconsistent, incomplete and often unconvincing. In pursuit of this design method, therefore, the thesis explores the origination and development of the Latina temple form across Central India. It interrogates contemporary scholars' theories of Latina spire design and investigates the role that the Vastusasdstras may have played in the practises of early temple architects. Vastusasastric descriptions of Latina spire design are turned into drawings of spire elevations in order to assess their credibility, and in doing so a particular method of spire design is ratified and additional design details are suggested in order to provide a working explanation. Using this method, four sets of spire proportions given in a West Indian text called the DiparUava are validated. These are shown to create convincing Latina elevations with proportions that are borne out by surviving Central Indian Latina temples, by an engraving of a half Latina spire carved into the hallway of the Harihara 2 Temple in Osian, and by the proportions of Temple 45 its fragmented remains. Drawing from these findings, and returning to the initial aim of the thesis, the thesis proposes a detailed and convincing elevation of the spire from Temple 45.

This thesis examines the influence of traditional Japanese culture and related 'Oriental' concepts in European Modern architecture, with particular consideration of the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto. The study is organised into six chapters, the first of which addresses the concept of influence, its direct and indirect modes of operation in architecture and the issues associated with Far Eastern sources. In the second chapter, the availability of information on Japanese architecture in Europe from the mid-nineteenth century through to the start of the Second World War is discussed, with reference to publications, exhibitions and architectural theory. In the following two chapters, the work of Mies is considered in the light of this available material. Although commentators have frequently referred to similarities between his buildings and Japanese precedent, direct connections have rarely been proposed. Consideration of the context in which he practised, however, reveals the availability of significant material related to the philosophical and conceptual basis of Japanese architecture, which, it is argued, finds various forms of expression in his work. In the case of Aalto, whose work is discussed in the final two chapters, parallels with Japanese precedent have been more readily identified by critics, with further examination of his context revealing an active interest in Japanese architecture and culture. Unlike Mies, who appears to have referred predominantly to conceptual sources, a more direct assimilation of the physical characteristics of Japanese buildings may be identified in Aalto's work. On the basis of this research, further conclusions have been drawn regarding the nature and effect of influence in architecture, most notably in relation to the 'anxiety' of influence experienced by practising architects, the significance of context, and the tension between traditional notions of influence and the broader understanding of 'intertextuality'.