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This thesis examines aspects of the work of American writer and social critic, Lewis Mumford, and the domestic buildings of architect William Wurster. It reveals parallels in their careers, particularly evident in an Arts and Crafts influence and the regional emphasis both men combined with an otherwise overtly Modernist outlook. Several chapters are devoted to the background of, and influences on, Mumford???s regionalism and Wurster???s architecture. Mumford, a spiritual descendent of John Ruskin, admired Wurster???s work for its reflection of his own regionalist ideas, which are traced to Arts and Crafts figures Patrick Geddes, William Morris, William Lethaby and Ruskin. These figures are important to this study, firstly because the influence of their philosophical perspective allowed Mumford, almost uniquely, to position himself as a spokesman for both Romanticism and Modernism with equal validity, and secondly because of their influence upon early Californian architects such as Bernard Maybeck, and subsequently upon Wurster and his colleagues. Throughout the thesis, an important architectural distinction is highlighted between regional Modernism and the International Style. This distinction polarised the American architectural community after Mumford published an article in 1947 suggesting that the ???Bay Region Style??? represented a regionally appropriate alternative to the abstract formulas of International Style architecture and nominated Wurster as its most significant representative. Wurster???s regional Modernism was distinct from the bulk of American Modernism because of its regional influences and its indebtedness to vernacular forms, apparent in buildings such as his Gregory Farmhouse. In 1948, Henry-Russel Hitchcock organised a symposium at New York???s Museum of Modern Art to refute Mumford???s article. Its participants acrimoniously rejected a regionalist alternative to the International Style, and architectural historians have suggested that authentic regional development in the Bay Region largely ceased because of such adverse theoretical and academic scrutiny. After examining the influences on Mumford and Wurster, the thesis concludes that twentieth century regional architectural development in the San Francisco Bay Region has influenced subsequent Western domestic architecture. Wurster suggested that architects should employ the regional and vernacular rather than emulate historical styles or follow theoretical models in their buildings and Mumford, upon whose work Critical Regionalism was later founded, is central to any understanding of the importance of the vernacular, regional and historical in modern architecture.

2 v. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis examines deconstructive writings, employing those strategies as a basis for re-forming approaches to architecture. A theory is posited that a distinction must be made between architecture as idiom and architecture as medium, expressed as a separation between architecture as a built form, Architecture the Idea and A(a)rchitecture as a new direction for framing an approach to its discourse. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture, 2000?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 138-149. Also available in a print form.

Thesis (M.Arch.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 138-149.

Zugl.: Hamburg, Universiẗat, Habil.-Schr., 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 387-422) and indexes.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-98). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-52). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis--Utrecht. / Vita. Summary in English. Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-71).