A number of books and articles have been written on the social movement to reimagine Southern California’s past in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While many of the pageants, parades, and public displays that defined this regional movement now reside in the pages of history, some architectural examples from this period are still visible today. In many cities, these examples are scattered throughout the community; while in others like Santa Barbara, they represent the centerpiece of the city’s architectural distinctiveness. Santa Barbara’s architecture challenges urban scholars to successfully garner an accurate sense of the past. More importantly, such historic spaces divert attention away from the social efforts that led to their inception. This thesis charts the history of Santa Barbara’s architectural reinvention and how the stylistic proliferation influenced the way various generations would think about the city’s past. The renaissance in a uniform Spanish style not only inspired local beautification efforts but also historic preservation, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the El Pueblo Viejo Landmark District in 1960. Additionally, this narrative critically examines the area’s history prior to the district’s establishment to show how economic profitability guided city planning, beautification, tourism, and preservation toward the ultimate solidification of the town’s Spanish image.

By the 1970s the international markets had begun to change and the region’s industries were becoming less competitive. Mines began to close. Factories that had operated night and day fell silent. Their gates closed and they became “brownfield” sites in need of restoration. For the over past 20 years, city planners regenerated these derelict industrial lands in different ways especially focus on renaturalizing them. Less attention is being paid to them as active and strategic roles in contemporary affairs. Today, people’s thinking about this issue demands more the character of sentimental stimulus- for either the re-creation or preservation of past industrial sites- than of visionary or ambitious reprogrammed landscape projects. A combination of nostalgia and consumerism drives this desire while suppressing ambitions to experience and invent.

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This study has been an attempt to examine the design, restoration and furnishings of the Beehive House to determine the degree to which the home was accurately restored, and to learn more about the key furnishings within the home.The answers to four questions have formed the body of the thesis:1. What was the historical background of the Beehive House to the times of its restoration?2. To what extent is the structural restoration authentic to the time of Brigham Young?3. What items were originally found in the Beehive House?4. To what extenet are the furnishings appropriate to the Beehive House?

Because African American architecture has not been recognized as culturally significant within academia, this thesis is an attempt to expand the architectural discourse. I will do this by answering the question: what is black architecture? To answer this question, we will examine the history of six houses specific to African American architecture: the barrack, the slave cabin, the shotgun house, public housing, the black suburban house, and the gentrified house. I will discuss the repercussions of each style, societal goals in establishing each style, and the policies or laws passed that instigated their creations. Importantly, I will explore how these styles are connected and how each style changed overtime. This historical narrative is not written to produce a survey report on the history of black architecture, but to be a basis to propose a design solution that could be implemented on Wells Avenue in Memphis, TN.

Due to the culture revolution, inflation of economy and globalization, China has been suffering from mass unqualified products of architecture, loss of culture and traditions, also unaffordable real estate; causing the instability of the society, in which emptiness, anxiety, uncertainty of people are occupied. Burdons must be released. And culture need to be revitalized. By studying I-Ching and Taoism, the origins of Chinese civilization, finding the philosophy of Tao which can be carried into architecture, the equilibrium between culture and globalization is established. The nation-wide uniformed apartments built under the welfare oriented housing distribution system in the 1980’s, are now either torn down or hidden behind the high rises and forgotten. The ones which are survived from the development of real estate, could be reconstructed to be a nice and affordable community where social interaction is encouraged, virtue of individual is cultivated and culture is renovated. In the philosophy of Tao, when one side is compelling and overwhelming, the counterpart could be perked up by yielding and returning. Therefore, in the design of the reconstruction, deduction is the motion of Tao. Introducing light scoops into the building to created horizontal and vertical courtyard, sunlight, rainwater and wind is able to come into the building. people is able to perceive the nature inside where balance of artificial and the nature is built. Also the light scoop divides the spaces into layers so that people have a private space to think as well as a semi-public space where social interactions are forced to happen. The space of light scoop is functionally blank, though. It is spiritually abondant.

This dissertation examines six major points: 1) it argues that Jefferson is an architect of the United States Capitol, having direct and final say over its design; 2) it asserts that Jefferson set two nationally influential models of architectural taste as part of his movement to reform American architecture, first in Richmond as the Virginia State Capitol and second in Washington as the United States Capitol; 3) it explores those models to define what Jefferson called “cubic” and “spherical” architecture; 4) it suggests that Jefferson used his political appointments to maximize his influence over the design of the United States Capitol in order to ground the building in classical sources; 5) it surveys the sources Jefferson looked to for inspiration, both printed texts and images as well as extant buildings in Europe and America; and 6) it proposes that Jefferson and B. Henry Latrobe worked hand in hand to execute a design for the United States Capitol that subdued and at times even replaced the official plan adopted from William Thornton’s winning design. This dissertation starts with the idea that Jefferson’s architectural reform consisted of conjoining vernacular building custom with architecture of the classical tradition. Most of what Jefferson knew about classical architecture came from books. Chief among them are Claude Perrault’s 1684 French translation of Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture and the three London editions of Giacomo Leoni’s versions of Andrea Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture in English translation. Using these print sources, Jefferson reinterpreted many of the standard public buildings of Virginia into temple forms. In addition, Jefferson’s plan to reform public architecture rested on two overriding principles: erecting buildings with masonry and organizing those buildings using the classical orders. Furthermore, this dissertation proves that, like the ancients, Jefferson wanted to build on a monumental scale. Jefferson’s own plan for a national capitol shaped like the Roman Pantheon, long misunderstood, clearly reinforces this interpretation. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates that Jefferson and B. Henry Latrobe worked in concert to execute a design for the United States Capitol that subdued the official plan adopted from William Thornton’s winning design.

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.

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.