ChronARG, the result of international collaboration, is a critical presentation of recent scholarship pertinent to the study of ancient Greek material religion, published annually in Kernos.

ChronARG, the result of international collaboration, is a critical presentation of recent scholarship pertinent to the study of ancient Greek material religion, published annually in Kernos.

Cooperative Construction in Schools in California John M. Donley The construction industry has lost efficiency since 1964, while becoming increasingly more litigious. Schools in California can ill afford the time to allow the construction industry time to fully evolve. It may take years or decades to fully improve the efficiency of, and reduce the conflict within the construction industry. At the same time, the construction industry has developed new processes to improve efficiency and reduce conflict. These processes are beginning to be broadly embraced by the industry. They all contain cooperative elements. Taken together they represent a new organizing principle for the construction industry, cooperative construction. Also concurrently, a previously little-used provision of the California Education Code allows schools freedom to contract for school construction in nearly any reasonable contractual arrangement they see fit for their project and district needs. As a result, school districts in California have developed a new system of project delivery. They are borrowing from here and there and inventing new tools to make projects work for them. Again, cooperative elements at the hearts of the processes.

The starting point of the thesis consists of a number of statements by prominent representatives of the cultural elite characterising architecture with references to classicism as the modern architecture. In the following years Swedish architecture was dominated by references to classical historical architecture focussing on the ideal of simplicity, which in turn formed a wider conceptual framework of ideas and ideals for architectural creation. The simple reason why the classical historical architecture became something of a role model was that it represented all these new ideals. The main purpose of the thesis is to study how architects made use of the more prominent ideals in the new conceptual framework. A secondary purpose is to describe and analyse the three chosen buildings in detail. A third purpose is to situate these buildings into the broader national context. The buildings under study are Liljevalchs konsthall (Liljevalchs Art Gallery), Kanslihuset (The Government Offices) and Kungstornen (The Towers). They were built at different times between 1910 and 1930. Each building has an obvious connection between the building program and the social changes of the time. In the first chapter the contemporary conceptual framework is presented based on examples from the architectural debate. The most important parts were the opposition to the traditional ideals in combination with the formulating of new ones like simplicity, unity and clarity as well as an orientation towards the historical national architecture and an open attitude towards new techniques. Central to the usage of the basic of elements of the historical architecture was transformation rather than imitation. The common view meant that role models and basic creational elements of the past were regarded as opportunities for new developments. The three following chapters examine the buildings under study. The buildings and their planning processes are described and the application of the historical references and their relations to historical buildings in the environment are analysed in detail. The buildings are further discussed in relation to the broader social trends of the time. The Art Gallery is discussed in view of its connections to the contemporary industrial architecture due to the industrialisation. The analysis of the Government Offices situates the practical and symbolic aspects of the building in the contemporary struggle between the monarchy and the old civil service and the newly established parliamentary democracy. The Towers are discussed in relation to the contemporary discussion of skyscrapers in Europe and in relation to the beginning of commercialism and popular culture. / <p>QC 20120424</p>

To be submitted.

My goal in this thesis is to frame, through design, an existing environment in a manner that fosters the witness and embrace of the reality and beauty of decay—which acts as a marker of the passage of time. My intent is to engage in a careful renewal of a neglected, and largely forgotten, urban landscape, which does not ignore its temporal context. My hope is to explore the full potential of the life cycle of buildings and discover the lesson of mortality in modern American ruins.Things fall apart. This is a simple truth about the physical world that humanity inhabits, which surrounds, invades and defines the human condition. Because [or in spite] of this we live in a culture that values progress, newness, and speed, that proselytizes through marketing the belief that comfort can be found in surrounding oneself with new things, pushing reminders of death away. The current world of architecture and design nurtures this mentality, selling projects through the production of sleek renderings of pristine and clean objects, a state that will only last for a short time. I argue that, in spite of this mind-set, the realization of entropic inevitability is necessary to provide a healthy temporal context through which to view daily life. Its acceptance is crucial to an appropriate perspective on life and the human condition, allowing positive forward movement in the midst of the change and deterioration that define life. I hope to show how architecture can foster this acceptance through adaptive re-use which values and interacts with the marks of time and traces of past use. The question that I am positing ultimately is this: How can new architecture breathe life into neglected spaces while also preserving the found beauty of the state of its breakdown, what one might call its ‘character’? Can architecture take cues from and be molded and enlivened by the people, events and nature that it interacts with and is transformed by? Can architecture enact a resurrection that deftly navigates between outright neglect and sterile renovation? And what is the appropriate way to do this?

There are approximately 1300 completely or partially preserved medieval churches in Sweden. Many of these have remains of kalkmåleri (mural paintings at least partially created in lime) from the 12th throughout the 17th century. This dissertation discusses the enactments that formed the revival of this kalkmåleri between 1850 and 1980, with a focus on restoration and conservation. The decorative and monumental paintings that were created at the same time are also discussed. The study is divided into two sections: one concentrates on the mural paintings and the networks that made their (re-)enactment possible, and the second is a case study that examines kalkmåleri in four medieval churches; Vendel and Ed north of Stockholm, and Floda and Vadsbro south of Stockholm. To come close to the paintings, an eclectic methodology with analysis of written and depicted sources, interviews, and studies in situ of the paintings through mapping and analysis of taken samples was designed. The objectives were to investigate the formation of kalkmåleri as phenomena, significant concepts, and conservation practices throughout time and space. Theoretical inspiration was taken from Actor-Network-Theory, critical discourse analysis, and speculative realism. Throughout the study the kalkmåleri is thus seen to have agency. The weave of enactments stemming from different professions and thought collectives that formed the paintings was made visible by following the actors. Some of these enactments were analyzed: i.e. the aesthetic shaping of the room, as religious and iconographic images, historical documents, art, style, technical, or hybrid objects. The latter refers to conservation that did not entirely rely on science, humanist scholarship, craftsmanship, or artistic creativity. Thus conservation is seen as a hybrid activity. Three periods of conservation principles were explored: stylistic restoration, original conservation, and precautionary conservation, which were related to what was perceived as the authentic original. Furthermore some Swedish "traditions" are discussed: that no institute for technical studies of art was formed, the use of "Curman’s principles", restricted retouching from the 1960s onward, and the use of gomma pane for cleaning. Finally appendices are included containing terminology, an index of conservators, and a DVD with mapping, chemical analysis, and photographs. / <p>Forskningsfinansiärer: FoU-medel: Riksantikvarieämbetet, Brandförsäkringsverkets stiftelse för bebyggelsehistorisk forskning, Elna Bengtsssons fond och Tyréns stiftelse.</p><p>Ett läsår på Columbia University kunde genomföras med stöd av Fulbright Commission. Erik &amp; Lily Philipsons minnesfond och Axelson Johnsons stiftelse.</p>

This thesis aims to reveal paradigms associated with the operation of Western architectural oligarchies. The research is an examination into "how" dominant architectural institutions and their figureheads are undermined through the subversive collaboration of younger, unrecognised architects. By appropriating theories found in Jacques Derrida's writings in philosophy, the thesis interprets the evolution of post World War II polemical architectural thinking as a series of political friendships. In order to provide evidence, the thesis involves the rewriting of a portion of modern architectural history, 1949-1987. Modern architectural history is rewritten as a series of three friendship partnerships which have been selected because of their subversive reaction to their respective establishments. They are English architects, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; South African born architect and planner, Denise Scott Brown and North American architect, Robert Venturi; and Greek architect, Elia Zenghelis and Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas. Crucial to the undermining of their respective enemies is the friends' collaboration on subversive projects. These projects are built, unbuilt and literary. Warring publicly through the writing of seminal texts is a significant step towards undermining the dominance of their ideological opponents. It also appears that through the making of these projects, the unrecognised architects are able to convert themselves to being recognised as new figureheads. This thesis contends that as a consequence of the power within each of the three friendship partnerships, the architects are enabled to collaborate against the dominant ideology of their respective enemies and gain status. It also contends that a cycle of friendship and warring is the political system by which the institution of modern architecture has historically reengineered itself to suit the times.

The dissertation deals with ideas about Japanese architecture in the Western, namely European discourse between 1945 and 1970. Architects and critics identified striking similarities between the Modernist architectural principles and the Japanese tradition from the 1920s; after the World War II, these similarities sparked a wide interest among the architectural public, which led to numerous publications on Japan unprecedented in scope and depth when compared with any other non-Western culture. The goal of this work is to map the discourse that occurred this way, identify the main themes connected to Japan, and show their significance. The sources for the study are prevalently printed media: architectural magazines and books. The notion of 'image' of Japan proves useful since we study interpretations of a different culture; history of ideas as well as visual representation in photography. At the same time, work also follows the of general issues of understanding the 'other'. An analysis of these various representations of Japan in the printed architectural media makes up the main part of the research presented here. To examine the origins of these ideas we go back to the 1930 with architects-writers Tetsurō Yoshida and Bruno Taut, and subsequently look into of writings about Japan by architects who...

I will build an argument utilizing the Hôtel de Soubise as a case study for the way in which the division between exteriors and interiors depicts the shifting cultural fabric of 18th-century French society.