Essa dissertação apresenta um estudo analítico sobre a obra do arquiteto Louis I. Kahn, desde o ponto de vista da sua qualidade espacial, compreendida esta no modo como ocorre a interação entre espaço e usuário. Foram selecionados três edifícios como estudos de caso capazes de representar a síntese evolutiva da concepção de espaço ao longo da obra de Kahn, os quais foram submetidos a uma análise empírica baseada na experiência espacial do observador em movimento, lançando mão de um conjunto de ferramentas no assim denominado método do observador. Os edifícios estudados viabilizam o desenvolvimento de análises que abrangem desde as primeiras obras de Kahn, na década de 1930, até o seu falecimento, em 1974. A análise realizada registra o desempenho dos edifícios em termos de sua legibilidade e funcionalidade, compreendidas como qualidades inerentes ao espaço e ao modo como este condiciona a experiência do usuário, relacionandoas à concepção espacial do edifício. Procura-se ampliar a compreensão dos resultados obtidos à luz da evolução da obra teórica do autor, traçando relações de causa e efeito entre esta e os fenômenos registrados na realidade concreta dos edifícios. O trabalho busca ainda ampliar a compreensão da relação da obra de Kahn com o contexto da produção arquitetônica de sua época, investigando as influências que recebe e as contribuições que oferece, especialmente no que tange à continuidade da arquitetura moderna. / The present dissertation is as an analytical study about the work of architect Louis I. Kahn, focusing on its spatial quality, as funded in the interaction between space and people in motion. Three buildings were selected as case studies in order to capture the evolutionary synthesis of space conception happened during Kahn’s career. Each building was submitted to an empirical scrutiny based upon the spatial experience of a moving observer, using a set of tools named as the “method of the observer”. The buildings investigated are put in relation with other Kahn’s buildings, so allowing the development of an analytical discourse embracing since his first works, in the 1930’s, until his death, in 1974. The analysis registers the performance of the buildings in terms of their legibility and their functionality, both understood as qualities inherent to space and the way they shape the user’s experience, so relating them to the building’s spatial conception. The dissertation intends to enlarge the understanding of the findings by considering the evolution of Kahn’s theoretical work, so bringing cause-effect connections between theory and the registered phenomena in the concrete reality of buildings. Eventually, this study aims to enlarge the understanding of the link between Kahn’s work and the architectural environment of the time, so exploring the influences he received and contributions he gave, especially concerning the evolution of modern architecture.

While many riddles exist in the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book containing female characters, both as actual human females and personified objects and aspects of nature, few scholars have discussed how the anthropomorphized “females” of the riddles challenge and broaden more conventional portrayals of what it meant to be “female” in Anglo-Saxon literature. True understanding of these riddles, however, comes only with this broader view of female, a view including a mixture of ferocity and nobility of purpose and character very reminiscent of the valkyrie (OE wælcyrige), a figure mentioned only slightly in Anglo-Saxon literature, but one who deserves more prominence, particularly when evaluating the riddles of the Exeter Book and two poems textually close to the riddles, The Wife's Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer, the only two poems with a female voice in the entire Old English corpus. Riddles represent culture from a unique angle. Because of their heavy dependence upon metaphor as a vehicle or disguise for the true subject of the riddle, the poet must employ a metaphor with similar characteristics to the true riddle subject, or the tenor of the riddle. As the riddle progresses, similarities between the vehicle and the tenor are listed for the reader. Within these similarities lie the common ground between the two objects, but the riddle changes course at some point and presents a characteristic the vehicle and tenor do not have in common, which creates a gap. This gap of similarities must be wide enough for the true solution to appear, but not so wide so that the reader cannot hope to solve the mental puzzle. Because many of the riddles of the Exeter Book involve women and portrayal of objects as “female,” it is important to analyze the use of “female” as a vehicle to see what similarities arise.

This study examines poor travellers who were on the move during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The focus is the County of Devon, with Exeter dealt with only briefly as it was a separate county. It is shown that the travellers, including numbers of Irish in the seventeenth century and foreign-born, particularly in the eighteenth century, were affected by a number of factors, but that the most important influence on their numbers and types was the incidence of wars. Economic factors, such as food supply, were of some importance, but the economy too was influenced by the effects of wars. Legislation also was found to have had less influence than expected. However, the legislation effective from 1700 did have a marked impact on the documentation available. The main sources used for this study are the parochial documents provided by churchwardens’ accounts of payments made to travellers in need and some of those of the parish overseers. These are supplemented by the records of Devon’s County Quarter Sessions. A combination of Devon’s geography, its strong international maritime connections and the influence of wars and their locations combined to affect the chronological and spatial variations in the numbers and types of travellers through the two centuries.