Town halls are the key expression of civic consciousness in the urban environment. They were constructed at a period of change for local government, when there was an urgent need for transition to an altered method of control. They enable a degree of civic access and ritual, and encapsulate important messages of local culture and heritage, in an effort to appropriate them to boost the legitimacy of the political process. The change expressed by their building can be read as a microcosm of the town; and from the town, the city and country: the majority of concerns and triumphs expressed at local level echoed those being voiced nationally, tracking flux in the narrative of social and political history. This research shows that the town hall provides the resolution of local authority change: it is a static statement of a great political transformation, easing the passage of a local authority’s development from a point of weakness and uncertainty to a position of strength. For this transition to be managed effectively, the ability of the town hall to express power is vital. This power is expressed through a broad range of source materials, including local and national sources of culture and history, and latterly, international inspiration as well. The function of the town hall’s architecture as a civic space designed for social ritual changed dramatically during the period studied, from making public involvement the design’s key driver in nineteenth century designs, to their relegation to external gathering spaces in the twentieth century. The social history of a locality was a frequent tool in the legitimisation of town halls – an effect heightened by the numerous strategies employed by their municipal designers to inculcate the suggestion of power within their construction. These could include the inclusion of redundant but impressive features, widespread demolition or the use of a culturally-significant location. This thesis describes how the narratives of power, ritual and civic access, drawn out during the construction of town halls, mirror those of contemporary society. It addresses the question of the role of town halls for urban society, and how they serve as monuments to distinct periods in the development of urban civilisation.

Women architects are effectively absent from architectural history in Australia. Consulting first the archival record, this thesis establishes the presence of 230 women architects qualified and/or practising in NSW between 1900 and 1960. It then analyses some of these early women architects' achievements and difficulties in the profession, drawing on interviews with 70 practitioners or their friends and family. Finally it offers brief biographical accounts of eight leading early women architects, arguing that their achievements deserve more widespread historical attention in an adjusted canon of architectural merit. There are also 152 illustrations evidencing their design contributions. Thus the research draws on quantitative, qualitative, biographical and visual modes of representation in establishing a historical presence for these early women architects. The thesis forms part of the widespread political project of feminist historical recovery of women forebears, while also interrogating the ends and means of such historiography. The various threads describing women's absence and presence in the architectural profession are woven together throughout the thesis using three feminist approaches which sometimes harmonise and sometimes debate with each other. Described as "liberal feminism", "socialist feminism" and "postmodern feminism", they each put into play distinct patterns of questioning, method and interpretation, but all analyse historiography as a strategy for understanding society and effecting social change.

This thesis is about the act of inhabiting the post-industrial landscape: about how a city with the remains of and scars from a previous era can begin to repurpose those remnants--both in a physical, as well as intangible sense. Proposing an alternative to the patterns of development that created such a landscape, it offers resistance to the entrenched values of privatization, commodification, and consumption. The chosen site--an abandoned grain elevator in Buffalo, New York--sits at a nexus of converging landscapes: the grid of downtown to the north, a former industrial canal to the east, a stretch of barren waterfront land to the south, and the expansive Lake Erie to the west. This site, existing at the mouth of the now contaminated Buffalo River, possesses both beauty and sublimity in its deterioration; as such, it is uniquely situated to become a charged point of entry to the desolate waterfront beyond, as well as a bridge--literally and figuratively--between the city, its heritage, and its legacy. Drawing on such precedents as the library and the enlightenment-era salon as traditional places of scholarship and colloquy, the project is also influenced by the archetypes of the tavern and the union hall as more informal, although no less vital, places of cultural exchange. It is the aim of this thesis to bring the residents of Buffalo together in a public platform that would impress and bring into focus the processes that created the current conditions, allow for the meaningful re-inhabitation of this landscape, as well as foster a sense of community, dialogue, exchange, learning, and inquiry, with the desired outcome of participatory change.

This study aims to explore the contemporary mosque architecture in Turkey, through a survey of the selected cases, focusing mainly on the use of traditional elements of mosque architecture. The selected cases are outstanding examples of contemporary mosque architecture in Turkey. Their architects are innovative in their design decisions and displayed their own design approach and interpretation outside the main stream of contemporary mosque design Turkey. In this framework, six mosques for every decade beginning from 1960&rsquo / s are analyzed in terms of their general architectural features and the use of traditional elements of mosque architecture in their design. Throughout the selected cases, the modification of forms and functions are studied and compared with the pre- Modern ones as well as with each other. The changed forms of obsolete elements and the introduction of new elements to their design are also discussed. By this way, a general evaluation regarding the developments and progress in contemporary mosque architecture in Turkey is proposed with reference to comparative results. On this basis, this study demonstrates that the main elements, organization schemes and planning setups of Classical Ottoman Mosque are still preserved in the selected mosque examples. The novelty brought to their design is basically the usage of modern materials and techniques and a formal exploration of mosque architecture.

This study is an initial attempt to assemble a dual history of the topics of informal settlements and sustainability within architectural discourse over the past fifty years. During the 1960s and 1970s, architecture adopted a renewed sense of social immediacy, which increased the study into informal and slum settlements, as well as a burgeoning concern of its own ecological impact, which encouraged investigation into sustainable design. While these interests all but disappeared amidst the artistic and political climate of the 1980s, they have again become relevant to architectural discourse, albeit as separate entities. The aim of this study is to unite these two discussions within architecture so that they may together become more potent. / text

The New York Public Library's Central Building, constructed just over a century ago, is in the midst of a major renovation. The Library's trustees have asked the architects at Foster + Partners to imagine the space currently occupied by the research collections' closed book stacks as a new, publicly accessible, circulating library. The administration's public relations strategy glosses over the meaning of this architectural reinterpretation, selling the renovation plan with only carefully selected historical facts and opinions that show support for the project. However, this narrative is deceiving; it oversimplifies the issues at stake. Both the broader New York Public Library system and Central Library in particular have an incredibly complex history. The influences that shaped the decision to build the 42nd Street building, its design and construction, and subsequent adaptations over the past century demonstrate an important relationship between the objectives of the institution and the Central Library's architectural form. Therefore, beneath the rhetoric of the renovation, beyond the positive inclusion of a main circulating branch in the central building, lies the decision to remove a large portion of the circulating collection from the center of the stronghold built to house it. This decision undermines the unique structure of the New York Public Library as one of the world's premier research institutions, removing the heart of the building.

Post-disaster displacement, with the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, is quickly arising to become one of the most serious humanitarian challenges in the 21st century. As post-disaster housing spans several phases, the transitional housing phase is equally crucial as emergency sheltering and permanent housing: as dwellers remain in transitional housing projects up to years, their physical and emotional wellbeing is directly influenced by their surrounding built environment. Existing literature and practice have not paid enough attention to the built structures of post-disaster transitional housing. This thesis revisits past practices world-wide and architectural theory in the 20th century. Arguing that current transitional-housing design methodology is still deeply rooted in early 20th century Modernist ideologies, this thesis ties the missing link between architectural theory and humanitarian built environment design. Through examining theories and case studies, this thesis stresses the importance of approaching post-disaster transitional housing through the lens of architectural design, and makes suggestions for future improvements.

This thesis examines the emergence and evolution of the Vernacular Italianate style of domestic architecture in Britain. The style was introduced in the form of a series of three country houses by John Nash in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It subsequently evolved over the next five decades into a popular template for the modest suburban house, widely disseminated through the medium of the architectural pattern books. The thesis considers the intellectual sources and antecedents which led to the emergence of this style and influenced its characteristics, analyses Nash's particular vision, and explores how the style was able to make a successful transition from villa rustica to villa suburbana, responding to the social and economic pressures which were at play in the expanding towns of the Regency and early Victorian era. It is a style which has been the subject of limited academic study to date, and the extent and significance of its role as a model villa for the new suburb is a theme which has been central to this research. A case is put forward that the style proliferated for two principal reasons: its versatility and adaptability for houses of differing physical scale and location, and its informal charm, inexpensively achieved, which conferred an air of sophistication appropriate to contemporary social aspiration. Nevertheless, as its popularity and accessibility grew over time the intellectual and aesthetic basis which underlay its origins as a product of the Picturesque aesthetic tended to be misunderstood or overlooked entirely, and by the 1860s the style had become diluted, frequently reduced to a matter of exterior detailing, with little reference either to Picturesque composition or to relationship between house and landscape, in contradiction of the tenets of Picturesque architecture propounded in the late eighteenth century, and in complete antithesis to the approach of John Nash in his original and distinctive Italianate interpretation.

Osu, a district in central Accra, Ghana, is known for its busy commercial enterprises, countless restaurants and vibrant nightlife. Osu remains prominent in Ghana and also globally for a variety of reasons. One of such reasons is that it is arguably Ghana's most contemporary setting; second to no other location in the entire country. Osu is also the site of Ghana's seat of government- The Colonial era Christiansburg Castle which houses the president’s office and official residence. The town also plays host to several western diplomatic missions and embassies including the American Embassy. In addition to its 5 star hotels, nightclubs and multiple drive-through restaurants, what really makes Osu prominent in Ghana and elsewhere is its multiple establishments for children, such as the Osu Children's Home, and its continued philanthropy towards the betterment of the plight of displaced and underprivileged children. This thesis proposes and showcases the design of a children’s event and cultural center in Osu; to celebrate and enhance its legacy of child philanthropy. Planning and vi generative design aspects of the built artifact such as programming, site studies, and the collection of potentials for form generation, will be exhaustively addressed in this thesis.

This thesis aims to critically examine the relationship of digital technology and the modern art gallery in order to find the possible role of art galleries in the future. The integration of technology and the modern art gallery can change the way people experience art in built space. In order to examine this, certain questions needed to be asked. The most important of these questions is authenticity and originality in a digital art gallery. What if, in order for the notion of originality to exist, it needs the notion of the copy; a kind of parasite. What if we don’t consider them as opposites, but rather as variables of a knot. What if there was never an original voice, but only writing. The process of writing itself undermines any notion of a primary original. It creates a space of difference, a gap. The space from one letter to the next, from one word to the next, from the graphite to the paper, and to continue to the digital, the space from 1 to 0. The difference described by Derrida in of Gramatology is the idea of difference through “trace.” Derrida says “The trace is in fact the absolute origin of sense in general. Which amounts to saying once again that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. The trace is the difference which opens appearance and signification.” Through a process of language study a series of spatial conditions were derived from a structured process of analyzing trace. This series of spatial conditions were then used to design the interior and exterior spaces along with arranging the buildings program and circulation through the new University Gallery. These spatial conditions allowed for a development of space that looked beyond simple geometric forms to form genuine experiences derived from a process.