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The Politics of Friends in Modern Architecture : 1949-1987Troiani, Igea Santina January 2005 (has links)
This thesis aims to reveal paradigms associated with the operation of Western architectural oligarchies. The research is an examination into "how" dominant architectural institutions and their figureheads are undermined through the subversive collaboration of younger, unrecognised architects. By appropriating theories found in Jacques Derrida's writings in philosophy, the thesis interprets the evolution of post World War II polemical architectural thinking as a series of political friendships.
In order to provide evidence, the thesis involves the rewriting of a portion of modern architectural history, 1949-1987. Modern architectural history is rewritten as a series of three friendship partnerships which have been selected because of their subversive reaction to their respective establishments. They are English architects, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; South African born architect and planner, Denise Scott Brown and North American architect, Robert Venturi; and Greek architect, Elia Zenghelis and Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas.
Crucial to the undermining of their respective enemies is the friends' collaboration on subversive projects. These projects are built, unbuilt and literary. Warring publicly through the writing of seminal texts is a significant step towards undermining the dominance of their ideological opponents. It also appears that through the making of these projects, the unrecognised architects are able to convert themselves to being recognised as new figureheads.
This thesis contends that as a consequence of the power within each of the three friendship partnerships, the architects are enabled to collaborate against the dominant ideology of their respective enemies and gain status. It also contends that a cycle of friendship and warring is the political system by which the institution of modern architecture has historically reengineered itself to suit the times.
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Transparency and learning spacesFinau, Emily 08 April 2011 (has links)
This thesis explores the various meanings and implications of transparency in architecture and in learning environments in particular. Architectural transparency, achieved through choice of materials and principles of formal composition, creates a diversity of relationships and can facilitate visual, conceptual, and functional clarity as well as offering simultaneous perception of different spaces. It offers a range of phenomenological qualities and so provides an opportunity to explore and complicate such dichotomies as translucency and opacity, openness and closure, and public space and private space.
While celebrated throughout modern and contemporary architecture, transparency raises issues of privacy and safety even as it breaks down hierarchies and social boundaries. The research-based design of transparency in a school building necessitates careful planning to achieve a balance between the access to views, natural light, fresh air, and social interaction that transparency may bring and the continuing obligation to provide a safe, secure environment for schoolchildren.
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