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Reflections on glass : trials and tribulations of a lingering observer

The following utterance is an exploration into the interactive space of glass and the disparity found in metaphors of its transparency. The rhetoric of transparency is initially scrutinized through a story that elaborates, in audacious generalizations, on the totalitarianism that comes out of the atheist rationalism of the Enlightenment. These generalizations are probed specifically in a look at the role of glass architecture and the consequent suppression of the body to a belief in an all-powerful reason. / The inquiry then switches to the operation of the destabilizing effect of a space that devours with its reflections and spatial ambiguities. As absolute transparency is defied by experience in the material world, the space of glass is investigated as an instrument for dissolving the identity of controlling institutions. From the subversive character of reflections, the final look is at the possible emergence of a new attitude and thinking inspired by that experience which does not serve ideological certitudes, but contradicts them.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.26106
Date January 1991
CreatorsHamel, Catherine
ContributorsPerez-Gomez, Alberto (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Architecture (School of Architecture.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001397924, proquestno: MM94248, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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