The research appropriates a theoretical-methodological framework of institutionalization analysis, which helps us to delineate how a collective belief, as in the case of railway building in Japan, was formulated. This framework helps us to delineate how a legitimate social order was established through discoursing, ritualizing, and imagining. Myths, rituals and imaginations attached to the notion of railway were indeed ideological concepts and packages to represent the changing society, even though these efforts might not be well recognized by different social players who participated in the making of this railway belief. The research argues that railway building became one of the most powerful manifestations of nation building. It is a part of the long-evolving process of Japan through which the emerging collectivity came to define and redefine itself in the growing world society. Through railway building, different social players tried to articulate myths, form rituals and share imaginations, and at the same time negotiate what rational economic policies, a legitimate democratic polity and an imagined community meant. / The research delineates the process of the building of the railway system in modem Japan (1868--1937). While the railways are commonly considered to be an economic and political infrastructure that is functional to the secular governments to integrate the invented nation-state, however, this does not adequately explain why there are many distinctive cultural imaginaries related to the railway in Japan and why the Japanese seems to be faithful enough to continue to lay tracks for years. I argue that trains are more than mere economic infrastructure through which collective sentiments are expressed. Instead, I argue that the belief that is formed towards the railway had been collectively crafted by different social players for a variety of reasons in the due course of modem Japanese history. Emerging social players, including capitalists, politicians, and commoners, tried to justify their varied practices by making claims to define the great use of railway. Railway building gradually became a shared platform on which different power and interests could be defined and practices legitimized. Those rationales, however, might have nothing to do with the instrumental "use" of railway, but were intimately related to the making of capitalism, democracy and nation-building in modem Japan. / Cheung, Yuk Man. / Adviser: Suk-Ying Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 294-323). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

published_or_final_version / Geography / Master / Master of Philosophy

Law So Man Belinda. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2000-01, design report." / Includes bibliographical references. / EXPLORATION-ISSUE AND INTEREST / Primary Elements of Railroad / Introduction--a Deconstmction of the Railroad / 4 Questions / INTERPRETATION-along THE RAILROAD / Time Scale / Spatial Value / Social Value / TRANSFORMATION / Time Table / Unification of Space / Hybrid Composition / Transportation / Penetrative Promotion / Show Time / Participant / Human Relationship / INTEGRATION-MULTIPLE IDENTITY ON THE LAST TRAIN / Three Statuses of Train / the Last Train / Identity / Time-Space / Time People / Time-Event / CONSIDERATIONS-SITE ANALYSIS AND PROGRAMME / Social Significance / The Rail / the Stations / the Train / tho Depot / Time Application / Schedule of Accomodation / CONFIGURATIONS--DESIGN DEVELOPMENT / "Form, Space and Order" / Passengers' Notice / Tenants' Notice / Development in Phases / Components of Matrix / Architectural Matrix / Time Matrix / Senerio Matrix

Lam Pui Wing Caspar. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2008-2009, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110). / Introduction / Preface --- p.2 / Table of Content --- p.4 / Research / Mobility Definition --- p.8 / Mobility & City --- p.10 / Mobility: Issues & Concerns --- p.13 / Methodological Research --- p.14 / Case Study 1 - Urban Design of Philadelphia --- p.16 / Case Study 2 - The McCormickTribune Campus Centre --- p.22 / Macau Lightrail: Background Research / Abstracted Renderings --- p.26 / Lightrail Scheme Development Process --- p.28 / Newspaper Cuttings --- p.30 / Mapping of Macau LRT: at PRD Scale --- p.34 / Mapping of Macau LRT: at City Scale --- p.36 / Zooming into the 23 Stations --- p.38 / Design Preliminary Stage / Site Study --- p.42 / Methodology Experiments --- p.52 / Schemetic Models --- p.54 / Proposed Circulation Pattern --- p.56 / Proposed Network of Open Spaces --- p.58 / Development Models --- p.60 / Presentation / Connection at Regional Scale --- p.64 / Connection at Local Scale --- p.72 / Connection at Architectural Scale --- p.88 / Appendix / Bibliography --- p.110 / Tickets --- p.112 / Panels --- p.114

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This dissertation is rooted within the process of analysing and understanding the dynamics of the context, from which principles can be drawn. The project is founded with the aim to address the harsh edges between Kliptown informal settlement and Kliptown CBD, which are physically separated by railway tracks. This dissertation identifies the context as the ‘bank’ of design informants. Thus it forces the author to undergo a critical analysis of the context. The proposed site (Kliptown) forms a comprehensive layer of history, which has over time influenced both physical development and movement of the site. The project propose a physical intervention in a form of a bridge over the railway tracks in attempt to connect the two areas. The author engaged with the context to establish program for the architectural intervention. The education gap was established within the informal settlement, which was then used to establish the program for the intervention. The average shack size of 15 square meters is never enough for learners to do they school work after schooling hours, thus the proposed programme of the physical bridge forms part of the bridging concept. The program is more about bridging the educational gap within the context.

[Truncated abstract] Rational order and play are often conceptualised as oppositional forces. In modern urban life especially, rational order is presented as destructive of a playful orientation towards life eschewing mystery through coherence, spontaneity through predictability, and contingency through systematic planning. In turn, the postmodern debate often asserts the reinvigoration of free, playful, and contingent individuals whose collective acts are destructive of the rationality of modern order with the present, in contrast to the past, offering a condition of enduring and unremitting uncertainty. This thesis explores the dynamic relation between rational order and play in urban society through an ethnographic account of a public commuter railway in Perth, Western Australia. Notwithstanding this ethnographic setting, the thesis addresses questions of broader significance through an analysis of the railway as an instance of public space and state techno-bureaucratic order. I investigate the creative process through which the state attempts to standardise the various operational components of the railway as well as the reasons underpinning the state's desire to produce what I term a 'clean machine'. In turn, I investigate how differentially positioned actors live within this carefully crafted machine. I do so by following the stories, experiences, and practices of: government administrators charged with building the railway; the managers who oversee the network's operation; the staff members who operate trains, clean stations, and discipline passengers; and the railway's end-users, including passengers and graffiti artists. ... In examining the two tensions of rational order/play and revelation/ concealment, I attempt to explicate how it is that people experience life as simultaneously coherent and serendipitous. In the thesis, I document the ways in which railway officials, passengers, and graffiti artists express a pervasive ambivalence towards their experience of the railway system. On the one hand, these actors experience the railway as a system of constraint that produces 'robotic' behaviours and automated transactions. On the other, they see the railway as a liberating space that enables autonomous expression and spontaneous interaction. By examining these contending experiences and associated sentiments, I highlight the railway as a stimulating site within which to explore the meaning and significance of urban modernity. Lastly, this thesis contributes to debate on the challenges posed by the character of contemporary social processes to anthropological research methodology. I illustrate the utility of such methods as written and photographic diaries as well as mental-mapping exercises, but primarily advocate the documentary and analytical advantages of participant observation in a mobile field-site. I assert that while participant observation poses a number of personal and professional challenges in this setting, these challenges uncover the stimulating complexity of contemporary urban life. To this end, I contest emergent academic commentary that propounds the destabilisation of anthropological techniques in what is frequently described as an equally destabilised world.