On the basis of the art and architectural displays at the 1878 Exposition Universelle Internationale à Paris, this thesis investigates the conflicting claims of nationalism; the late nineteenth-century tensions between tradition and modernity; and the disparities between the intentions of the organizers and the perceptions of the visitors. Creating connections between methodological and theoretical issues of interest to art history and museum studies, the argument explores further and refines our understanding of what has been constitutive of Exhibitions. This thesis takes the 1878 Exposition Universelle Internationale à Paris as its focus, in order to further appreciate the extent to which Exhibitions were able to influence their visitors’ minds and bodies. It scrutinizes a wide range of material generated as part of the national participation of the United Kingdom to this event in specific case studies for both breadth and depth of understanding. The examination of material published in 1878 newspapers provides evidence of a critical gaze within the Exhibition boundaries. International and universal Exhibitions have been significant events in producing and conveying various messages about diverse topics to unprecedentedly large audiences. Their rich content entailed the production and consumption of diverse experiences and meanings beyond attempt of controlling bodies and behaviours. The study of the British participation in the 1878 International Street or Rue des nations uncovers the tensions between symbols, taste and technology in architecture. Original research in the archives of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, gives a particular insight in the role of a key institution in the preparation of a national visual arts exhibition in the 1878 Paris Exposition. The examination of the reception of a particular artwork provides a useful counterpoint to these first institutionally-oriented analyses. Focusing on W. P. Frith’s The Railway Station (1862) offers a different perspective to understand the way a vast array of contemporary meanings could impact the reception of a particular work. The investigation of the critical reception of British paintings in 1878 France emphasizes the strength of cultural narratives beyond the specific vision for the Exhibition.

Esta pesquisa procura investigar o processo de projeto na arquitetura e como o mesmo passou a ser influenciado nas últimas décadas pelas ferramentas digitais que surgiram desde então. Busca estabelecer uma visão sobre o projeto arquitetônico questionando a existência de um novo paradigma. Para isso analisa a produção acadêmica brasileira dos últimos anos que exploraram ou desenvolveram teorias sobre a utilização de ferramentas digitais afim de estabelecer um ponto de partida. Através da bibliografia expõem uma visão e uma defesa de uma forma de projetar e de como as ferramentas digitais podem auxiliar este processo sem criar deturpações de uso. Por fim o texto contrapõem duas arquiteturas: a arquitetura silenciosa - sóbria - que busca adequar-se à cidade e tão bem aguenta o passar do tempo e a arquitetura digitalista, focada no "inusitado", que está muito mais voltada à possibilidade de exploração midiática da edificação e que tantos problemas traz aos usuários e à sociedade. / This research investigates the design process in architecture and how it came to be influenced in the past few years by digital tools which emerged since then. It seeks to establish a vision about the architecture design methods by questioning the existence of a new paradigm. Thereunto it analyzes the Brazilian academic production of the past few years which explored or developed theories about the use of digital tools in order to establish a starting point. Through literature, it exposes a vision and a defense of a way of designing and how digital tools can assist this process without creating distortions of its use. Finally, the text contrasts two types of architecture: the silent, sober architecture, which seeks to adapt to the city and as well support the passage of time and changes of its uses, and the "digitalist" architecture, focused on the "unusual", which turns to the possibility of the media exploitation of the building and the many problems it brings to users and society.

Esta pesquisa procura investigar o processo de projeto na arquitetura e como o mesmo passou a ser influenciado nas últimas décadas pelas ferramentas digitais que surgiram desde então. Busca estabelecer uma visão sobre o projeto arquitetônico questionando a existência de um novo paradigma. Para isso analisa a produção acadêmica brasileira dos últimos anos que exploraram ou desenvolveram teorias sobre a utilização de ferramentas digitais afim de estabelecer um ponto de partida. Através da bibliografia expõem uma visão e uma defesa de uma forma de projetar e de como as ferramentas digitais podem auxiliar este processo sem criar deturpações de uso. Por fim o texto contrapõem duas arquiteturas: a arquitetura silenciosa - sóbria - que busca adequar-se à cidade e tão bem aguenta o passar do tempo e a arquitetura digitalista, focada no "inusitado", que está muito mais voltada à possibilidade de exploração midiática da edificação e que tantos problemas traz aos usuários e à sociedade. / This research investigates the design process in architecture and how it came to be influenced in the past few years by digital tools which emerged since then. It seeks to establish a vision about the architecture design methods by questioning the existence of a new paradigm. Thereunto it analyzes the Brazilian academic production of the past few years which explored or developed theories about the use of digital tools in order to establish a starting point. Through literature, it exposes a vision and a defense of a way of designing and how digital tools can assist this process without creating distortions of its use. Finally, the text contrasts two types of architecture: the silent, sober architecture, which seeks to adapt to the city and as well support the passage of time and changes of its uses, and the "digitalist" architecture, focused on the "unusual", which turns to the possibility of the media exploitation of the building and the many problems it brings to users and society.

Esta pesquisa procura investigar o processo de projeto na arquitetura e como o mesmo passou a ser influenciado nas últimas décadas pelas ferramentas digitais que surgiram desde então. Busca estabelecer uma visão sobre o projeto arquitetônico questionando a existência de um novo paradigma. Para isso analisa a produção acadêmica brasileira dos últimos anos que exploraram ou desenvolveram teorias sobre a utilização de ferramentas digitais afim de estabelecer um ponto de partida. Através da bibliografia expõem uma visão e uma defesa de uma forma de projetar e de como as ferramentas digitais podem auxiliar este processo sem criar deturpações de uso. Por fim o texto contrapõem duas arquiteturas: a arquitetura silenciosa - sóbria - que busca adequar-se à cidade e tão bem aguenta o passar do tempo e a arquitetura digitalista, focada no "inusitado", que está muito mais voltada à possibilidade de exploração midiática da edificação e que tantos problemas traz aos usuários e à sociedade. / This research investigates the design process in architecture and how it came to be influenced in the past few years by digital tools which emerged since then. It seeks to establish a vision about the architecture design methods by questioning the existence of a new paradigm. Thereunto it analyzes the Brazilian academic production of the past few years which explored or developed theories about the use of digital tools in order to establish a starting point. Through literature, it exposes a vision and a defense of a way of designing and how digital tools can assist this process without creating distortions of its use. Finally, the text contrasts two types of architecture: the silent, sober architecture, which seeks to adapt to the city and as well support the passage of time and changes of its uses, and the "digitalist" architecture, focused on the "unusual", which turns to the possibility of the media exploitation of the building and the many problems it brings to users and society.

In this dissertation, I investigate connections between French philosophy and the theory of architecture from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s. In the mid-1960s, many architects became acutely aware of the crisis of modern architecture embodied in the failings of social housing, the routinized corporate modernism of the postwar period, and the commodification of design. They questioned the principles of the Modern Movement and emphasized the “arbitrary” nature of the relationship between form and function while turning to French structuralism, semiology, and post-structuralism for potential answers. My period of study spans from the the period of political uprisings of the 1960s to the advent of digital design in the early 1990s.To date, little in-depth research has been done on the close relation between French philosophy and architecture in this period and its role in foreshadowing postmodern developments. My dissertation addresses this gap by presenting case studies of the theoretical work of six different architects: Aldo Rossi, Alan Colquhoun, Mario Gandelsonas and Diana Agrest, Bernard Tschumi, and Peter Eisenman. These case studies share a common thread: a preoccupation with structuralist and poststructuralist concerns with language. However, concepts such as “structure,” “event,” and “meaning” often have different meanings for each of these architects. Thus, my project could be described as a history and criticism of architectural theory—one that focuses specifically on the dissonances and contradictions present within the theoretical writings of these architects, while examining the polemics and discussions between them. I consider their built work only to the extent that it helps to elucidate or challenge theoretical concepts. Thus, in my case study on Aldo Rossi’s writings, I interrogate the analogy between the structuralist concern for articulating discrete and finite linguistic units and the latter’s notion of “type” and urban morphology. In the chapter on Alan Colquhoun, I discuss the influence that the work of Roland Barthes, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Ferdinand de Saussure had on his reflections about “meaning” and “convention” in architecture. In the case study on the work of Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas, I examine the extent to which their understanding of “theory” and of “ideology” is indebted to the work of Louis Althusser and trace the influence of Roland Barthes, whose seminar on S/Z they attended in Paris before moving to New York in 1971. Likewise, I analyze the role that thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, and the Tel Quel circle in the late 1970s, and Jacques Derrida in the early 1980s had on Bernard Tschumi’s writings on the “polysemy of meaning” and on the “event.” Finally, I examine Peter Eisenman’s collaboration with Jacques Derrida in the 1980s questioning Eisenman’s eclectic appropriation of Derrida’s philosophical concepts. Besides elucidating this significant period of architecture in which many of the fundamental principles of modern architecture were overturned, in the conclusion of this study, I discuss briefly the “post-critical turn” in the architectural scholarship of the past two decades with the hope of challenging its basic assumptions. My hope is to contribute, through its critical reevaluation, to theory’s renewal.

The Caveat For many reasons, names have had to be concealed within this document. The events depicted are real and the discussions true. This is an attempt to legitimize the informal, seemingly mundane and sometimes personal: the author’s experiences bringing a folly to the physical, while trespassing into a new world: Islam. This thesis documents a series of interventions at different scales within that world. There is a book, the chair, and the city of Makkah. The events themselves are superimposed onto the traditional language, or professional conventions, used to justify them. Here, they are relegated to the margins of each page. This is akin to how some of the first books were produced, by students in the confines of dark cloisters or hot desert temples, struggling to maintain historical integrity while fighting the natural tendencies of youth. Their master’s voices always looking over the gutter from the opposite page. The sketches for a new Makkah and a monumental demonstration in Canada unfold in parallel to a body of formal research. Together, as seemingly independently as they are, they paint the portrait of an Islam, while building a personality between the lines. That being said: there isn’t a correct way to read it.

The Caveat For many reasons, names have had to be concealed within this document. The events depicted are real and the discussions true. This is an attempt to legitimize the informal, seemingly mundane and sometimes personal: the author’s experiences bringing a folly to the physical, while trespassing into a new world: Islam. This thesis documents a series of interventions at different scales within that world. There is a book, the chair, and the city of Makkah. The events themselves are superimposed onto the traditional language, or professional conventions, used to justify them. Here, they are relegated to the margins of each page. This is akin to how some of the first books were produced, by students in the confines of dark cloisters or hot desert temples, struggling to maintain historical integrity while fighting the natural tendencies of youth. Their master’s voices always looking over the gutter from the opposite page. The sketches for a new Makkah and a monumental demonstration in Canada unfold in parallel to a body of formal research. Together, as seemingly independently as they are, they paint the portrait of an Islam, while building a personality between the lines. That being said: there isn’t a correct way to read it.