Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-75).

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes special report study entitled: Automatic building conveying system for human flow. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes special report study entitled: Rehabilitation of old buildings. Includes bibliographical references.

With technology's prevalence and the Internet's evolution from a didactic presentation of information to an interactive venue for participation, assumed relationships of authority and trust for a variety of institutions, especially museums, is being challenged. As a self-labeled trustworthy source of resources and information (MacArthur 2007), the expansion of opportunities for visitors to contribute and participate online may make some cultural institutions of nervous. In a quickly changing online environment, what voices should be heard and who should be trusted? This qualitative narrative study focuses on how visitors to art museum websites describe their experiences to these sites. I collected stories from online users in order to gain a more rich and full understanding of the journey of online exploration. The addition of multiple voices and personal accounts compliments previous evaluations of museum websites, some of which primarily focused on numerical and statistical data while others blended the two types of results (Bowen, 1999; Chadwick & Boverie, 1999; Garzotto et al., 1998; Harms & Schweibenz, 2001; Haynes & Zambonini, 2007; Johnson, 2009; Kravchyna & Hastings, 2002; Marty & Twidale, 2004; Ockuly, 2003; Peacock & Brownbill, 2007; Streten, 2000; Sumption, 2006). I wanted to gain a more personal account, one told by the various users of websites in order to learn more about the process rather than the outcome (Webster & Mertova, 2007). Even with multiple voices, similar experiences emerged with varied stories connecting and supporting one another. These shared stories detailed users' clear expectations and goals when visiting a museum's website along with the emotions felt during the experience. From the various stories told, themes emerged identifying the study's key findings, which led to recommendations for developing user-centered museum websites. / text

After reversion of Canal ownership from the U.S. to Panama in 1999, the construction of Panamanian national identity became deeply tied to notions of development. This thesis explores how the discourse of development is created, circulated and negotiated through important Panamanian cultural institutions. It shows how race and raced bodies became the dominant site for the negotiation of Panamanian national identity in the post-Reversion era. This discourse of development promotes the “myth of mestizaje”—a myth that the nation is homogeneous and without racial difference. Through the example of Panama, we perceive the cracks in the global notion of development as “common sense” and uniformly experienced. / text

Precious local character and distinct neighborhood network are intangible assets that are worth to be retained, revealed and inherited. This differentiates a place from others with its diversified and unique essence, but again links up its community members through a shared understanding and appreciation of their own cultural legacy. Wanchai is one noticeable example of embracing rich local heritage and strong social network which are, however, at stake under development projects in the pipeline across the region. It is not uncommon to see that different community-based conservation efforts have been put forth to retain local value and heritage in many countries. One example is the set-up of community museums which have their presence across the globe since 60's, serving to retain and revitalize the vanishing local skills, and reveal the local stories and knowledge through local community force. Two successful examples in U.S. and Taiwan will be referenced to as an understanding of the characteristics and achievements of a community museum model. In Wanchai, a similar community-involved museum model is seen i.e. the Wanchai Livelihood Place (WCLP) established by a local NGO and a group of enthusiastic residents. WCLP is characterised by its aims to preserve and reveal the cultural essence of Wanchai and involve wide local participation in all aspects, ranging from operation, management and decision-making of WCLP. To be specific, its relationship with the community is of great important to be studied which can help assess its role - as a community museum - in achieving the conservation end together with the Wanchai community. In this dissertation, by a thorough investigation of the case of WCLP, it is held with the objective to study and evaluate this bottom-up conservation museum model regarding its relationship with the community in terms of preserving, revealing and revitalizing local culture, stories, traditions and addressing local issues for the Wanchai community; as well as its contribution to the Wanchai community in terms of local involvement, identity building and sustainable community development. Furthermore, the opportunities and challenges of this community-oriented conservation model will be discussed. In a wider context, this will help serve as a reference for other similar examples in Hong Kong. Lastly, it is important to note that the discussion will focus on the period from the establishment of WCLP in 2007 to end of Feb 2012, during the time when it was named the Wanchai Livelihood Place and was very much based on community support. After then, since March 2012, WCLP has changed its name to Hong Kong House of Stories under the Hongkong Bank Foundation's sponsorship and also as a result of the preparation for the official launch of the “Viva Blue House” Revitalization Project in 2014. From then, its mission and depth of activities have been expanded. This is worth to be looked into as the challenges and opportunities encountered by WCLP regarding its future development. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

By critically analyzing trends in museum fashion exhibition practice over the past century, this thesis defines and describes the varied representations of historical fashion within museum exhibitions in Britain and North America. Evidence collected through archival research on past exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bath Fashion Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the McCord Museum, and supplemented by media reports, academic reviews, as well as secondary theoretical literature, suggests that the discourses of historical fashion exhibitions have been heavily influenced by the anxieties and values placed upon fashion more generally. The discipline of fashion curation is deeply rooted in and dependent upon much earlier display practices in museums, galleries, and shops. The interplay between personal and world-historical narratives in exhibitions, the celebration of consumerism and corporate brand identity, as well as claims to aesthetic universality and quality, continued to surface across historical fashion exhibitions in all the institutions studied over the period 1913 to the present. Moreover, historical fashion, as it has been displayed in the case study institutions, also reflects the function of the museum institution itself, especially its visual marking of time and social contexts. This thesis contributes to a growing literature on the history of museums and on fashion curation and provides a historical framework for exhibitions of historical fashion to both disciplines. The worksheet generated during data-gathering provides an objective vocabulary for evaluating the physical and intellectual content of a historical fashion exhibition, and is a potentially useful tool for future researchers. Furthermore, as this dissertation investigates the role of display as a means of communication about material culture, it provides new and original insights into this important aspect of museum practice and therefore, also contributes to theoretical debates within the larger field of cultural heritage.

The university art museum can make a significant contribution to the academic and cultural life of the parent institution. While there are many roles of art museums within institutions of higher education, there is a common thread -- the conviction that interdisciplinary exhibitions and programs expand the relevance of the art museum within the academic community. In this study, I examine interdisciplinary collaborations between the university art museum and faculty from diverse academic disciplines at American institutions of higher education. What relationships, if any, exist between academic programs and art museums at universities? What institutional structures are keys and barriers to successful collaboration between the university art museum and academic programs? What factors determine the success of interdisciplinary collaboration between the university art museum and diverse academic programs? In order to fully explore the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration, qualitative analysis of current initiatives at university art museums throughout the United States was necessary. The conceptual framework of interdisciplinary exhibitions and programs is thus established. Secondly, case studies examine the organizational culture of the institutions and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Virginia Art Museum, the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art of Art at the University of Richmond, and the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College. As well, my professional experience, through a retrospective account of projects at the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College, provides insights into both the potential and process of interdisciplinary collaboration. While I am mindful that this informs my conviction that interdisciplinarity and collaborative practice is essential to the university art museum, the partiality that existed at the onset of the study was recognized and subjected to a rigorous research and methodology that imparts validity and authenticity to this inquiry. While the “publish or perish” convention of the academy supports discipline-specific research and individual publication, I contend that the university art museum must engage in interdisciplinary dialogue through which perceptions are changed and new meanings are unveiled while respecting the integrity of the disciplines involved. This study of institution-wide interdisciplinary collaboration between university art museums and the academic institutions of which they are part reveals what is being done through innovative exhibitions and programming to promote the interconnectedness of ideas and issues. Collaboration with diverse academic disciplines reaffirms the traditional expectations of the museum of investigation, inquiry, and intellectual challenge. Purposive exhibitions grounded in collaboration between academic disciplines can generate debate, critique, and conversation. In doing so, the university art museum is an indispensable component of the university’s mission and asserts its relevance to the institution and its role in the educational experience through collaboration between the university’s academic programs and the university art museum.

This doctoral thesis examines literary representations of the Holocaust by Saul Bellow, Thomas Pynchon and Paul Auster, and maps the relation between memory and narrative elicited from literature onto American museums, memorials and monuments. This research argues that the ramifications of the trauma originally felt by Holocaust witnesses resonate in the American collective memory, and its literary and architectural forms, that seeks to remember on behalf of those witnesses. The consequent traumatic disruption of literary and architectural narratives can be identified, using various appropriated psychoanalytical concepts, and Holocaust memory traced as it eludes, and irrupts in, the cultural forms that try to remember it. Establishing the dynamics of collective memory allows the cultural significance of Holocaust remembrance to be investigated, especially in relation to the memories and ethnic identities of survivors that are subsumed by an Americanised version of the past. By way of a conclusion, although this thesis points to the problematisation of historical representation, it also challenges notions of the Holocaust's unrepresentability common to much postmodern thought. It searches for a methodology of memorialisation or at least identifies where blocks to mourning could be removed from the American cultural landscape.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture