This thesis sets out to re-locate and redefine the historical arguments around the development of the Modern Movement in architecture. It investigates the development of architectural modernism in Central Europe from 1895-1939 in the towns and cities of the multinational Habsburg Empire, in a creative milieu in which opposition, contrast and difference were the norm. It argues that the evolution of the Modern Movement through the independent nations that arose from the Empire constituted an early and significant engagement with urbanisation, planning and architectural modernism that has been largely overlooked by western scholarship. By reviewing the extant literature in discussion with Central European authorities and by drawing upon a little known range of sources, this thesis brings into focus the role of key individuals such as Plečnik, Fabiani and Kotěra and it explores the significance of developments in town planning in places like Zagreb and Ljubljana. In restoring some of this missing detail and revisiting some of the key sites, the thesis reveals how Central European individuals made early and significant contributions to the development of architectural modernism and the Modern Movement that have hitherto received little critical acknowledgement. What this research reveals is how these figures developed what can be seen as local solutions, rooted in the context and culture of individual towns and cities and their unique histories. However more significantly, this thesis also demonstrates that these independent initiatives were formed with an understanding of - and in response to - wider national and international developments in the field of architectural modernism. In this connection, the thesis can be regarded as part of an emerging academic effort to redress the history of the Modern Movement and an attempt to set in motion a raft of suggestion for further research into this rich field of cultural endeavour.

Il existe une abondance extraordinaire de récits de voyage et d'oeuvres de fiction en langue allemande focalisant l'outre-mer et en premier lieu les Etats-Unis d'Amérique. Ces textes écrits au cours du XIX et pendant la première moitié du XX siècle représentent un phénomène notable mais peu commenté qui se prête tout à fait à un traitement historique: ces écrits accompagnent, appuient, commentent et vilipendent la très forte émigration allemande vers les Amériques, notamment l'Amérique du Nord. Le présent travail s'attache à rendre compte du roman d'aventures outre-mer de langue allemande et ce faisant s'efforce de cerner ce qui fait la spécificité de la perspective allemande. Dans cette optique ont été retenues douze oeuvres composées par des auteurs germanophones aussi différents les uns des autres que les Allemands Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816-1872), Karl May (1842-1912), Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976), L'Austro-Américain Karl Postl alias Charles Sealsfield (1793-1864), l'Autrichien Franz Kafka (1883-1924), le Germano-Mexicain B. Traven (1882-1969). Après un chapitre d'exposition traitant de l'horizon d'attente présent dans l'Allemagne du XIX siècle, onze chapitres sont consacrés à l'étude des romans sélectionnés. L'analyse de ces oeuvres permet de mettre en évidence quelques caractéristiques saillantes qui sont propres au genre tant au niveau de l'esthétique , de la logique, des thématiques et des schémas idéologiques qu'au niveau de l'organisation en affrontements axiologiques entre un univers de la rationalité et de la civilisation et un monde considéré comme relevant de la "sauvagerie". Sont aussi analysées la silhouette de l'aventurier littéraire, les différentes approches de l'altérité entre refus et attrait, la tentation récurrente de la transgression, l'inscription du récit dans un système de codes et de stéréotypes préexistants. / There are many German travel stories as well as works of fiction focusing on overseas territories, in the first place on the United States of America. These texts that were written in the course of the nineteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth century represent a noteworthy phenomenon that has been little commented on and lends itself well to a historical approach. Indeed, these pieces of writing accompany, comment on and vilify the German mass migration to the American continent, especially to North America. The present work attempts to account for the German adventure novel the plot of which takes place overseas. In so doing it tries to define the specificity of the German perspective. Twelve novels have been selected that were written by several german-speaking authors very different from one another: the German Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816-1872), Karl May (1842-1912), Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976), the Austro-American Karl Postl aka Charles Sealsfield (1793-1864), The Austrian Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Germano-Mexican B. Traven (1882-1969). Following an introductory chapter dealing with the horizon of aspirations in nineteenth-century Germany are eleven chapters each devoted to the study of one selected novel.The analysis of these works shows some striking features that belong to the genre either at the level of the aesthetics, logic, set of themes and ideological patterns or at the level of axiological confrontations between a rational, civilized world and the so-called "savageness". Other items in the study are the figure of the literary adventurer, the different approaches to the alterity phenomenon, the recurrent temptation of transgression, the insertion of the text in a pre-existent codes and stereotypes system.