The Ruins of Detroit (2013) is a twenty-four minute orchestral work for string orchestra, string octet, celesta, harp, two vibraphones, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, two bassoons, two clarinets, two oboes, two flutes, and pre-recorded audio soundtracks. The focal point of the work is the conceptual exploration of urban decay found throughout the city of Detroit, Michigan, in 2012. Urban ruins are visible symbols, and landmarks of our society and its changes. Perhaps no other city has been affected more by post-industrialization than Detroit, whose plight has become symbolic of the shift away from manufacturing. This concept not only manifests itself though the utilization of archival recordings and electroacoustic elements in the work, but also throughout the acoustic material as well. Structurally, the work shifts through a series of seven “atmospheres,” which are comprised of pitch collections based on all white notes that descend from A through G. The syntax is anchored in the organization of musical material into foreground (solo violin,) middle-ground (harp, celeste, string octet, piano, percussion, woodwinds, brass) and background (string orchestra, soundtracks). The central theme to this work is intended to be the wholeness of music, and challenges the listener to step inside of it, and experience it not as a representation of place, but as a place in itself: The Ruins of Detroit.

The Ruins of Detroit (2013) is a twenty-four minute orchestral work for string orchestra, string octet, celesta, harp, two vibraphones, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, two bassoons, two clarinets, two oboes, two flutes, and pre-recorded audio soundtracks. The focal point of the work is the conceptual exploration of urban decay found throughout the city of Detroit, Michigan, in 2012. Urban ruins are visible symbols, and landmarks of our society and its changes. Perhaps no other city has been affected more by post-industrialization than Detroit, whose plight has become symbolic of the shift away from manufacturing. This concept not only manifests itself though the utilization of archival recordings and electroacoustic elements in the work, but also throughout the acoustic material as well. Structurally, the work shifts through a series of seven “atmospheres,” which are comprised of pitch collections based on all white notes that descend from A through G. The syntax is anchored in the organization of musical material into foreground (solo violin,) middle-ground (harp, celeste, string octet, piano, percussion, woodwinds, brass) and background (string orchestra, soundtracks). The central theme to this work is intended to be the wholeness of music, and challenges the listener to step inside of it, and experience it not as a representation of place, but as a place in itself: The Ruins of Detroit.

This thesis responds to a growing appreciation for the richness and ambiguity of mid-century architectural culture in Britain. Initially focussing on the enthusiasm for a science-based approach among architects and town planners, the thesis identifies – in the diverse debates of the Second World War and immediate post-war years – an architecture that achieves significantly more than an abstract, inhuman, or totalising utopianism. Instead, it will expose affinities between the enthusiastic pursuit of objective solutions in architecture and planning and the drastically compromised realities, both of the historic city in ruins, and of certain episodes in the history of architecture that enjoyed popularity after the war. The first chapter introduces the problem of utopianism, a concept that has often accompanied critical studies of modern architecture. An appraisal of the utopian tradition highlights the frequent vagueness and ahistoricism of the term, leaving room for an appreciation of utopian speculation as dynamically historical, with the potential to decisively enact change. The second chapter identifies these characteristics in the mid-century enthusiasm for scientific planning, an approach that used quantifiable methods of research in order to legitimise an emerging town planning profession, which had gained added impetus from the transformative social impact of the Second World War. Underpinned by the civic and regional survey, this approach advanced the potential of technocratic management to ‘solve’ the problems of social organisation and physical planning. However, an analysis of specific attempts to speculatively develop the necessary planning machinery indicates a far richer range of concerns. The third chapter shows that the experience of wartime bombing dramatically changed the aspect of Britain’s towns and cities, with the resulting ruins presenting a visceral challenge to the idealising promise of science. But this seeming conflict obscures the relationship between ruination and reconstruction. For the anxiety and exhilaration of destruction was, in fact, embedded in the practice of rebuilding, both in the memories of the builders and of the public at large. Furthermore, an examination of contemporary architectural writing on the subject of wartime ruins displays an attempt to aestheticise and appropriate the ruin’s effects, while simultaneously maintaining an outward attitude of detachment. The final chapter develops this discussion, moving from the ruins of the historic city to investigate the mid-century adoption of architectural history as a justification for design. It will show that while scientific research seemed to promise objective solutions, the study of history received a similar authority after the war. Consequently, the historian could assume a status analogous to that of the planning expert: a fact evidenced by the activities of Rudolf Wittkower and Nikolaus Pevsner. Just as the utopian potential of science was conditioned by its contingency, this chapter will demonstrate that the appeal to history would also inevitably be limited to partial solutions.

My dissertation focuses on nineteenth-century American literature texts that engage with ruins and monuments. Traditionally, this interaction has been treated as a formal curiosity for literary critics, but this project argues interarts literature carries important implications for public sphere theory, especially in cases when an author writes about nationalist architecture and iconography.

In his work, taking into account each person's right to dissent and freedom of choice. Individual interventions proposed are the final premise or the best possible version of the story. I do not create a coherent architectural and urban design, but a comprehensive architectural and urban manual. Individual interventions together may or may not cooperate. The investor may be a city, a private company, enterprise, institution. They can happen suddenly or slowly and gradually over several decades. The main condition for the use of the manual is common sense. Manual force does not enforce his right. The transformation of the building must be carried out within the framework of voluntary and assessed as a good solution. The manual looks at the buildings individually, however, he must continue the one who uses it The manual takes into account the economy, the laws of physics and the freedom of human thought. It neglects the current system of cultural heritage and the current building legislation. The manual offers, but not required. Manual man needs more than one needs manual.

This dissertation investigates the relationship of the Fortifications in Pretoria to the public. The architectural problem of making the public aware of these Fortifications is investigated and responded to by designing a Visitors centre, to draw the public to the Fort, by creating an experience of moving through the landscape. This experience orientates the visitor visually towards various other iconic monuments, by symbolically turning the visitor into a camera, capturing views and experiences for himself. The program also provides facilities for Archaeological research which will be done on various other Fortification ruins and archaeological sites in Pretoria. The visitors experience and interaction with the landscape and the vision of the Fort as artefact contributes to the visitors being made aware of the gradual deterioration of the Fortifications in the city to ruins. The Fortifications themselves are monumental ruins, but by adding to them yet still respecting their heritage qualities, makes this a sensitive and respectful response to an important problem of how to preserve historical artefacts and at the same time utilising them. West Fort will become the catalyst for public awareness and experience to the other Fortifications within the city context. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

I began with a place, the Roman ruin of San Lorenzo in Milan. This place has been a "provocateur," not an object or a set of parameters from which I responded. Architectural readings of the city are contaminated with foreshadowings or hints of what is yet to appear. One may read the city as "Janus" who pulsates back and forth leaving traces of past cosmogonies which look forward to being remembered. As the "haruspex" regards the liver in order to auspiciously found a city, distinct bodies of the city are "mirrors of the world at the moment of sacrifice." Reading the city as a Janus-faced entity suggests a slippery liminal zone between what is often clearly separated as existing and intervening. The act of drawing the site is also an act of remaking the site. The section of the city is a hieroglyph to be deciphered and "completed." This "completion" is necessary but not absolute. / Master of Architecture

Notre recherche entend déterminer les éléments constitutifs de la photographie de ruines au XIXe siècle pour tenter de définir ce modèle de représentation de la trace archéologique. Cette étude s'attache à comprendre comment les sites archéologiques de la Méditerranée ont été reproduits à travers une photographie d'archéologie dont les règles scientifiques ne sont pas encore fixées au XIXe siècle. Pour conduire cette recherche, nous nous sommes proposés d'appliquer une méthode comparative, en analysant la production réalisée par les photographes dans deux contextes géographiques et géopolitiques différents, dans le cadre de fouilles, de voyages personnels ou de voyages d'explorations archéologiques. Compte tenu de critères historiques et socio-culturels pertinents, nous avons sélectionné deux pays des deux bords méditerranéens, l'Italie et Algérie. Deux destinations scientifiques mais aussi touristiques propices à la découverte physique de l'expérience archéologique pour les photographes de la période étudiée, et ce du simple fait de la richesse et de la diversité de leur patrimoine archéologique. Deux destinations qui ont également connu une histoire de l'archéologie, et un développement des fouilles distincts sur bien des aspects. À partir d'un corpus relativement important, la démarche comparatiste que nous avons choisie d'appliquer nous a permis d'observer, de décrire et de comprendre la manière dont les photographes ont contribué à la structuration et à la circulation des imaginaires relatifs aux sites archéologiques entre l'Europe (en particulier l'Italie) et l'Afrique Nord (l'Algérie) au XIXe siècle. Aussi, par l'intermédiaire d'un protocole bien défini , et d'une sélection de corpus (principalement centrée sur la production des photographes français), nous avons pu souligner un ensemble de systèmes de représentations de la ruine lié à un imaginaire commun des pays Méditerranéens. / Our thesis wishes to determine the components of the photography of ruins in the 19th century and to try to define this model of representation of the archaeological trace. This study aims to understand how the archaeological sites of the Mediterranean sites have been reproduced through a photograph of archeology whose scientific rules are not yet predefined in the nineteenth century. In order to produce this research, we propose to apply a comparative method, analyzing the production produced by photographers in two different geographical and geopolitical contexts, in the context of excavations, persona) travels or archaeological explorations. Taking into account relevant historical and socio-cultural criteria, we selected two countries on the two Mediterranean shores, Italy and Algeria. Two scientific but also tourist destinations conducive for the physical discovery of the archaeological experience for photographers of the period studied, simply because of richness and diversity of their archaeological heritage. Two destinations that also experienced a history of archeology, and a history of their separate excavations on many aspects. Based on a relatively large corpus, the comparative approach we have chosen to apply has enabled us to observe, describe and understand the way in which photographers have contributed to the structuring and circulation of the imaginary Archaeological sites between Europe (especially Italy) and North Africa (Algeria) in the nineteenth century. Thus, by means of an established protocol and a selection of corpus (mainly centered on the production of French photographers), we have been able to highlight a set of systems of representations of the ruin linked to a common imaginary of the countries Mediterranean countries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-266). Also available on the Internet.

Cette étude s'attache au statut des ruines dans la photographie de guerre et en dresse l'inventaire de leurs aspects esthétiques. Le cas de la ville de Beyrouth, défigurée par les bombardements pendant la guerre civile (1975-1990), est à bien des égards exemplaire puisqu'elle a fait l'objet d'une commande photographique confiée à des photographes prestigieux, en 1991, qui avaient pour mission de conserver la mémoire d'un immense champ de ruines. Cette commande photographique est donc, pour cette raison, au centre de notre recherche. Pour saisir pleinement les enjeux des choix effectués par les photographes au cours de cette commande, il était nécessaire dans un premier temps, d'analyser la mise en place de la constitution d'une esthétique des ruines dans l'histoire de la photographie de guerre de 1853 à 1945, à travers des exemples célèbres sur les champs de bataille. Dans un deuxième temps, il était important de considérer les motivations et les objectifs de chacun des photographes dans le contexte de la commande, en les mettant en résonance avec d'autres expériences photographiques menées à Beyrouth pendant et après le conflit, mais aussi en filiation avec les cas étudiés dans la première partie. La troisième partie de cette thèse constitue un compendium des aspects esthétiques dans le traitement photographique des ruines de guerre à Beyrouth qui permet d'affirmer aujourd'hui que, la ruine de guerre est un genre à part entière en photographie. / The present study explores the status of ruins in war photography and draws up the inventory of their aesthetic features. Disfigured by bombing and shelling during the civil war (1975-1990), the city of Beirut is in many respects an examplary case since it was the subject of a photographic commission entrusted to prestigious photographers in 1991, the mission of which was to preserve the memory of an immense field of ruins. For this very reason, this photographic commission is at the core of our research project. Firstly, in order to understand fully what was at stake in the choices made by the photographers within the framework of this commission, we had to analyze how the aesthetics of ruins has been elaborated in the history of war photography from 1853 to 1945, using famous examples from battlefields. Secondly, it was important to consider the motivations and objectives of each of the photographers within the context of the commission. For this purpose we made these elements echo other photographic experiences conducted in Beirut during and after the conflict, then we related them to the cases studied in the first part. The third part of the present thesis forms a compendium of aesthetic aspects in the photographic vision of war ruins in Beirut that makes it possible to assert that war ruins form a fully fledged genre in photography.