Between 1913 and 1926, the aged British commercial institution, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), built four monumental department stores across Western Canada in Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg. In this thesis extensive archival research on the buildings and the HBC's architectural policies is analyzed within the contexts of Canadian social history, and of Company business history. The HBC was making new advances into the department store field, and the stores were clad in a standardized style intended to create a particular image of the Company in contrast to its competitors. Popular in Britain at the time, this Edwardian Classicism emphasized the HBC's history as the official representative of the British Empire across the hinterlands, a history largely defunct by the turn of the century. The opulent style also helped to establish the stores as key cultural institutions and as palaces of consumption. After World War One the HBC also began to stress its specific historical role in the Canadian fur trade and the settlemehtof the nation, through the use of various other architectural features such as the display windows, art galleries and museums set up inside the new stores, and by the historical sites of Company buildings. The competition between historical themes -British Imperial and Canadian frontierist- evidenced in the HBC department stores were tied to social factors. Demographic changes and nationalist sentiment after WWI forced the HBC to recognize Canada's particular pluralist society, and to mediate its image as a purely British organization. Many staff members and customers had no ties to the Company or the Empire, so the HBC invented a tradition that the public could relate to and participate in. The codification of a representational strategy was complicated by the differing agendas of the Company's London Board and its Canadian management. The study of architectural issues such as urban context, style, and building use establishes how the modern HBC employed history through modes of representation in the built environment, to justify its claims to the loyalty of a diverse population of workers and customers. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

No description available.

The intention of this thesis is to examine the possibility of seeing mythology and ritual as sources for understanding spiritual, symbolic and spatial structures in architecture. Mythology and ritual are used as sources of creativity for examining a culture's architecture and as a way to understand the creative and cultural processes informing an architectural record. Central Great Zimbabwe is used as a case study for examining this. Karanga ethnography has not previously been considered as a source for interpreting Great Zimbabwe. However, historical evidence documented in this thesis shows that the Karanga were the creators and occupiers of Great Zimbabwe. The study pursues the need expressed by P. 1. Sinclair to consider the mythology of the region as an informative tool to understanding the symbolic values inherent in the landscape of settlement dynamics and symbolic structures; ...one might expect such aspects of material culture as architectural style and settlement layout, organisation and decorative motifs as well as a choice of subsistence needs to be strongly influenced larger scale expressions ofsymbolic values... exist in the expressions of kingship and power Further illustrations might include the associations of the granite mountains found throughout the plateau margins with the widespread distributions ofstone buildings. The mythology of the region has been little considered from this point ofview (Sinclair, P. 1987: 159). The study sets out to test Sinclair's observation by examining whether the Karanga symbolic values sourced from the mythology and ritual practices of the region may be reflected in the settlement dynamics and spatio-symbolic expression of Central Great Zimbabwe. Parts of the study examine Thomas Huffman's fieldwork, documentation and methodology. As the most prolific documenter on Great Zimbabwe, with the most recent interpretations, Huffman's findings are rec.orded and discussed in detail and his hypothesis for domba (initiation centre) function for the Great Enclosure is tested against the information evident in Karanga mythology and ritual. Since his hypothesis is widely criticised by his colleagues, this criticism is also included in this study as an informative tool to contextualise this field of research and outline the current ethno-archaeologica1 debate concerning the function of the Great Enclosure. This dissertation takes a different approach to that of Huffman and therefore the outcome of this study deviates from that of Huffman's. lIDs study adopts a synchronic approach to history while HufIman's methodology is a structuralist one and takes a more diachronic approach. Since both approaches are necessary in this field of study, the synchronic approach here is seen as a way of contributing new information and interpretation to the field. The intention of the thesis is not to suggest an 'answer' to the 'mystery' of Great Zimbabwe, but to offer possibilities and to recognise that this is merely one approach in a very complex, interactive and dynamic research field. In any qualitative study area, research should lead to still further research and should not be considered to be leading to the 'answer' to a 'problem'. Therefore, this study explores a wide range of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, religion, history and archaeology in order to broaden and deepen the study. Architecture is neither a science nor an art but sits comfortably between the two domains. It is therefore an interactive discipline and is marked by a divergent flow of creativity. Rather than taking a convergent approach, which is marked by a structuralist need to solve problems, this study approaches research in a divergent way, where the grappling with the 'problem' itself is seen as a process leading to discovery and possibility rather than to an 'answer'. The study therefore does not examine Karanga mythology as a way to answer the 'mystery' of the stone ruins, nor to provide proof or evidence for an archaeological hypothesis. It is rather a study towards examining ways in which mythology and ritual can be used to broaden and deepen an understanding of symbolism and meaning in architecture. A method of inquiry which validates the diversity of views and documentation in this field of study is validated by this dissertation and is seen as a valuable way of approaching the history of architecture in Southern Africa at this particular time, where African society is itself undergoing transformation as it reinterprets its past in a 'de-eolonised' African context. For that reason, interpreting Great Zimbabwe based on local ethnography is seen as a valuable way offurther validating African creativity and local origin. We can no longer afford to view history one-dimensionally. We need to learn to accept different grounds and more than one belief system. Examining Karanga mythology and ritual is considered in this study as a new way of seeing and interpreting historical artifact in order to expose the creative domain of discovery. This approach is relevant to the paradigmatic shifts being made in Southern Africa and globally, where society is discovering new ways of seeing itself and concentrating more on its processes than on its products. Society is becoming more tolerant of other perspectives and we need to consider how we can learn more about our society both past and present within the context of so many changing paradigms. The results of the proposed investigations for this study as outlined above are documented summatively in Part 5, Chapter 9 and generally in the Conclusion at the end of the study. / Thesis (M.Arch.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

This study proposes a systematic approach for investigators to judge how architecture of a given cultural group can be considered as culturally identifiable. More specifically, it proposes the steps in unveiling the relationships between chosen core elements of cultural distinctness and various design patterns. The suggested sources of core elements are political, social/behavioral, and economic influences on architectural design and approaches to create architectural signs. It is presupposed that a design pattern is considered culturally identifiable when important core elements are communicated via noticeable signs. The communication is perceived from a semiotic analogy of architectural signs, whereby the importance of one core element over the other is identified by the investigator through research into the cultural context under study. A case study on China's architecture is presented to illustrate these steps and test the proposed hypotheses. The steps are so designed that testing the relevance of core elements to architectural signs is essential. Forty-six sample buildings selected from China served as stimulus materials in the case study. These building patterns were rated as different types of signs on the basis of the core elements elicited from China's present-day culture. These buildings also were judged in a survey by forty-four Chinese students and their spouses at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who represent samples of overseas Chinese laypersons. The findings show that survey results deviated significantly from the semiotic results as laypersons considered traditional architecture most representative of Chinese identity. The semiotic results show that culturally identifiable designs are the hybrid forms of traditional and modern architecture. Most laypersons ignored the relationships between their perception of distinct identity in architecture and core elements of economic meanings and sign-creation approaches. This deviation implies a significant cultural lag in perceiving distinct identity between professionals and laypersons, and led to modification of the presupposed hierarchical importance of core elements. Through the case study and findings, this research illustrates the procedure by which investigators can determine from a specific range of cultural elements the most effective means of communication of identity. It enables the inclusion of core elements of popular culture in comparing various design patterns and in differentiating built forms of one culture from that of others. The study ends with the factors and suggestions that are related to communication of Chinese identity in architecture. / Ph. D.

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis. For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty monuments of Islamic architecture exhibiting the geometric mode, while the other contains over one hundred records of activity in the sciences and philosophy. From these databases, decorative geometric pattern types were classified and ranked, and scholarly activities were classified. Density maps were developed from these classes and ranks for each century, and were compared in a series of analytical overlay maps. Each map depicts the spatial relationships of the activities in question over a span of three centuries, enabling a spatio-temporal analysis of the connections between disciplines within the context of the broader cultural elements at work. These maps allow for examination of these disciplines in a new way; there has never been a spatial analysis testing the existing hypotheses until now. The density overlay maps show that some of the prevailing hypotheses are partially supported by the data, but the primary hypothesized relationship-that activity in mathematics prompted use of the geometric mode-is not applicable to all regions of the Islamic world during this time period. The spatial analysis exposes the previously overlooked possibility that the geometric mode could have influenced activity in the sciences and philosophy. This study provides tools to better understand the complex relationships among art, science, and philosophy: two spatial databases, a geographic information systems (GIS) model, and resulting analytical overlay maps. The maps produced in this project reveal examples where the quality of contact among disciplines in these very specific times and places is worth examining in greater detail.