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This thesis considers the qualities of the Aalto atelier's public works, and their production. It argues that the atelier's achievement in making places rests on the simultaneous operations of its playful working approach coupled to an underlying historical - human - orientation. It maintains that, reflexive with the specific character and history of Finland, the Aalto atelier's public works form an Umwelt (surrounding world) that invokes the experience of an earlier stage of historical development and public life, and which evolves through the accretion of experiences acted upon it. This is communicated by a morphology of environmental relationships and taxonomy of spatial and formal types that form a sublimated pattern in which buildings and spaces structure, inform and frame public life. They create an environment in which socially beneficial patterns of behaviour are either encouraged to happen, or are represented, and therefore legitimised and encouraged. The Aalto atelier achieved this through an assimilatory and intuitive approach to design. They adopted a technique that matched their aims through conceiving spatial design as a unifying topology structured by lived experience. This was an approach enabled by its ingenious realisation within the freedom and values of play. The social practice that shaped this artistic process necessitated sensitivity to contingency and so enabled the Aalto atelier to build within the everyday conditions of modern life. The process was fulfilled through the support of an atelier - a collective approach to design - that appreciated these values and saw them translated into material form. The thesis evaluates this through a single case study, the Seinajoki Centre (1951-88). In addition, it documents the historical and contemporary circumstances and connections, that informed the Aalto atelier's work, and it draws on interviews with twenty-eight of its members.

This thesis reestablishes the importance of Thomas Archer as a Baroque architect, after centuries of exclusion from mainstream architectural history. It also strives to rehabilitate Archer into commentary on the wider English Baroque, acknowledging his uniqueness and importance within such a key movement in architectural history. All too often, Archer has been sidelined due to his being classed as a gentlemen architect, with financial independence derived from his Court position as Groom Porter. However, Archer was a skilled designer, who knew and worked alongside the major architectural figures of the period. He produced some of the finest Baroque country houses, churches and garden buildings in this country. The main volume of the thesis takes a fresh look at Archer's major documented works, on a caseby- case, chronological basis. This approach allows each architectural work to be examined within the context of his developing style, which gradually became bolder, and more overtly influenced by the continental Baroque, throughout his lifetime. It also allows the works to be understood within the evolution of Archer's career in Court, which gave him consistent access to some of the most influential members of the gentry in the country; a continuous theme throughout the thesis is a consideration of Archer's patrons, underlining how pivotal his Groomporterage was in securing architectural commissions. Where relevant, the thesis highlights Archer's awareness of designed landscapes, and raises the possibility that he played an active role in advising patrons about the layout of the gardens surrounding his garden buildings and country houses. This is supported by new evidence of Thomas Archer's Grand Tour across Europe, which evidently took in some of the most influential continental gardens of the period. Archer's Grand Tour itinerary also helps elevate his status as an architect, by confirming that he was far better travelled than most of his famous architectural peers, and had seen the Roman Baroque at first hand. The Appendices contain further case studies of some of the most important architectural works that are confidently attributed to Archer, permitting a greater depth of understanding of his style and patronage. A Gazetteer also helps to build up a more detailed chronology of his life and works, and flags up areas for further future research. The Conclusion firmly re-establishes Archer as one of the most important English Baroque Architects, pinpoints the keys to his success, and examines the demise of his career within the context of the Palladian Revival.

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This thesis demonstrates how the works of art and architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), a British scholar of German origin, played a major part in the accession of the history of art and architecture to the status of an academic discipline in the United Kingdom in the 1930s and 40s. This case study, along with the various networks that played a part in his displacement from Germany to Britain in 1933, sheds a different light on current research on the history of émigré intellectuals, as it seeks to show that there is a latent conflict between the ideal of universalism in science and the national socio-cultural vectors at play in transnational displacements. Our research focuses on methodological, institutional and historiographical transfers that made Pevsner’s career into a milestone in the historiography of art, architecture and design. It tackles the main aspects of his contribution, from the issue of the Modern movement, through the use of the concept of space in the architectural discourse based on the principle of empathy (Einfühlung), to the exploration of the artistic production and the architectural heritage of Pevsner’s country of adoption. Our contention is that the role of an art historian as a mediator between his subject and society goes beyond the realm of academia. This thesis shows how Pevsner found a place in British culture as editor, broadcaster and art critic, while basing these activities on German models, and how these activities gradually transformed an interpreter of culture into a cultural institution.

This dissertation examines the obfuscatory potential of transparency in the work of architectural practice Foster & Partners. Transparency, as a narrative of Western culture, has been used unthinkingly and uncritically by architects to equate clarity with rationality, accessibility and democracy. Through a close analytical reading of the practice's output, using a framework which draws from Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space (1974), Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (1981), Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media (1964), and Reinhold Martin's The Organisational Complex (2003), the political, cultural and social significance of Foster & Partners' transparent architecture is discussed. The dissertation works with two definitions of transparency: one drawn from Foster & Partners' use of transparent techniques and rhetoric as found in their built and published work; one based on a critical approach to materials which locate the place of transparency in architectural and spatial history and theory. Three case-studies from the practice are read for their transparent capacity and are placed in their respective historical-geographical contexts, following the methods of David Harvey. These projects, The Palace of Peace and Concord in Kazakhstan (2004-2006); HACTL Super Terminal in Hong Kong (1992-1998); and the Philological Library of the Free University Berlin (1997-2005), are analysed to examine the technological, material, aesthetic, formal and spatial qualities of their organisation. By placing these projects in their respective contexts, the position of transparency as an active architectural and cultural device is discussed, and its role in shaping the structure of social, political and institutional forms is explored. The thesis concludes by questioning widespread assumptions in architecture and culture that transparency acts to open-up and decrypt the hidden.

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Against a socio-historical background, this study examines how the occupational identities of architects are constructed and operationalised in Sweden and in Scotland as a means to understand how their individual and associative roles might differ from one another in the context of the dynamics of socialisation as they progress in their career life course and how the social construction of their identity may impact work practice in the field of architecture. Identity research within the creative industries and in particular among architects has not typically been cross-national. Moreover, few studies regarding gender in the profession have included both men and women. The narratives of twenty-three architects from diverse practices in Scotland and Sweden reveal important cultural, professional, political and gender differences that illuminate opportunities as well as barriers to training, employability, enterprise development, and professional progression. Via narratives from twenty-three architects in Scotland and Sweden across three generations and supported by historical, statistical, and cultural data as well as initial focus group studies, this research has explored ways that these architects identify themselves and each other within the context of their life and work courses. Results of the comparative study suggest that differences between practices and thought in several key areas in each country affect the work course of architects: 1) labour policy with regard to public and private employment of architects; 2) theoretical and practical emphases in architectural education; 3) titling and certification of architects; 4) family and childcare policy; 5) cultural and historical attitudes toward men and women, and 6) values related to aesthetics, success, and risk. In addition to these, it was clear that the less extraordinary but unpredictable turns of life that include personal relationships, job and client searches, geographic mobility, timing of education and employment, and historical and cultural influences are undeniably factors, albeit immeasurable, that influence the kinds of decisions that individuals make. Understood in the contexts of organisational identity and the social construction of identity and through the socio-historical lens of life course perspectives, the extracts of narrative biographies reveal how these individuals navigate their professional lives and how their accommodation strategies change over time. Understanding these strategies offer further insights regarding architecture education, forms of practice, and the professional culture thereby leading to a reduction in attrition among women in architecture and an increase in occupational life satisfaction, particularly but not exclusively within the creative industries.