Digital Commons Network^™

Calligraphy Tablets In The Forbidden City, Jianrong Wang

Bridgewater Review

The calligraphy tablets hung over each main gate and building in Beijing’s Forbidden City, although often neglected by visitors, actually are special embodiments of traditional Chinese concepts either well known or maybe unexpected by their readers. Besides explaining architectural functions, the tablets also can be read as means of decorating the architecture, conveying political ideals, advocating academic achievements, expressing good wishes and depicting charming sceneries.

Faner Hall: Faux Pas And Follower?, Mitch Jordan

Legacy

No abstract provided.

The Rhetoric Of Architecture And Memory Of The Holy Sepulchre In Byzantium, Jelena Bogdanović

Jelena Bogdanović

The actual physical appearance of the Anastasis‐Golgotha complex in Jerusalem during Byzantine times is not documented archaeologically. The extent and significance of the Byzantine interventions between the seventh and eleventh centuries, after the destructions by the Persians, from earthquakes, and devastating fire set by the Caliph al‐Hākim in 1009, remain understudied. Presumably, after each destruction the first structure restored for veneration was the major locus sanctus, the Holy Sepulchre. Because it is doubtful that the Byzantines kept records on the architectural design of the Holy Sepulchre, their reconstructions were not based on a definite pictorial scheme, but rather on the …

Architectural Wit: Le Corbusier And The Use Of Visual Analogy And Metaphor, Bruce Abbey

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

"The ability to see the world of ideas in visual terms and as a method equivalent to literary poetics distinguishes the work of Le Corbusier from other architects of his generation." A detailed description of his use of visual metaphor and analogy has been difficult to find in the critical literature. This article explains Le Corbusier's use of visual analogy and metaphor.

Owen Jones' The Grammar Of Ornament, John Jespersen

Kresten Jespersen

No abstract provided.

Form And Meaning, John Jespersen

Kresten Jespersen

As did Owen Jones, Bloomer argues for a modern style of ornament to decorate a modern architechture. Based on formal laws rather than theories of classical or naturalism imitation, conventionalization can be seen as being explicitly modern. More-over, deriving from the work of ornament, these laws are dependent on intrinsic rather than extrinsic principles.

Owen Jones And The Conventionalization Of Ornament, John Kresten Jespersen Ph.D.

Kresten Jespersen

Owen Jones, an architect and theorist of ornament, is best remembered as an ornamenter of distinction. His theory and practice of conventional ornament, his powerful color, and his original forms which had their origins in the ornament of the Alhambra substantiate the claim that he was the greatest ornamenter of his age. The book analyzes the theory of conventionalization as it applies to ornament, color, architecture and interior design. In particular, the book explores repose as the psychological and spiritual outcome of his ornament.

Transformation Of Industrial Space, Xin Jia

Masters Theses

By the 1970s the international markets had begun to change and the region’s industries were becoming less competitive. Mines began to close. Factories that had operated night and day fell silent. Their gates closed and they became “brownfield” sites in need of restoration.

For the over past 20 years, city planners regenerated these derelict industrial lands in different ways especially focus on renaturalizing them. Less attention is being paid to them as active and strategic roles in contemporary affairs. Today, people’s thinking about this issue demands more the character of sentimental stimulus- for either the re-creation or preservation of past …

Preservation Ethics In The Case Of Nebraska’S Nationally Registered Historic Properties, Darren Michael Adams

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation focuses on the National Register of Historic Places and considers the geographical implications of valuing particular historic sites over others. Certain historical sites will either gain or lose desirability from one era to the next, this dissertation identifies and explains three unique preservation ethical eras, and it maps the sites which were selected during those eras. These eras are the Settlement Era (1966 – 1975), the Commercial Architecture Era (1976 – 1991), and the Progressive Planning Era (1992 – 2010). The findings show that transformations in the program included an early phase when state authorities listed historical resources …

British Civic Architecture In The United States Of The Ionian Islands, Nicholas Patricios

Nicholas Patricios

On 5th November 1815 the United States of the Ionian Islands was established under British protection through signature of the Treaty of Paris. British Residents were subsequently stationed on each of the seven Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece as governors of each Island. During the Protectorate period, 1815-1864, the Residents carried out numerous public works from public buildings and structures to roads and harbors. The most prolific Resident was Charles Napier in Kefalonia. The civic architectural style of the public buildings and structures designed by British architects and engineers was inevitably Neo-Classical, ironically a new style for …

Architecture In Archaeology: An Examination Of Domestic Space In Bronze Age Mesopotamia, Megan E. Drennan

Honors Scholar Theses

The study of architecture within archaeology has not had a direct, well-defined history nor a singular academic pursuit. Yet over time, four branches have developed; they examine: 1) the object itself; structures as artifacts, 2) activity areas within a structure, 3) the specific way in which a building confines space, and 4) the relationship between human behavior and architecture.

This investigation surveys domestic space in the Bronze Age Mesopotamian urban centers of Tell Asmar, Nippur, and Ur. The analysis uses methods from the study of space, such as space syntax, access analysis, and visibility angles, to demonstrate the probability of …

Universality And Its Discontents: The Louvre And Guggenheim Abu Dhabi As A Case Study In The Future Of Museums, Catherine R. Skluzacek

Art and Art History Honors Projects

The contemporary museological community faces increasing competition in the global marketplace to prove its relevance. Accordingly, franchises of leading institutions will now appear in Abu Dhabi, UAE, that approach this problem by presenting art in a comparative international perspective rather than as fragmentary narratives of disparate cultures. Furthermore, shifts in state financial support and the purposes of collecting within museum institutions have led to the adoption of administrative policies like those used by multinational corporations. This new model of museological practice presented by the Louvre and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi resolves the paradox of protecting cultural diversity within universal museums.

Undermining Impasse: The Role Of Architecture In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Laura Ondrich

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Undermining Impasse: The Role of Architecture in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Abstract

Laura Ondrich

Architecture is political, in that it can be used to further an authority’s agenda, and the relationship between peoples under that authority can be affected by it. As the political tool of a ruling power, architecture in a place of ongoing conflict may propel the conflict and submit to its perpetuity at the detriment of participating peoples. Though politics are often considered intangible, certain conflicts exist in real space, thus there is an opportunity for architecture to create an influence. In this case where architecture - concrete …

Theatre For A New Theater: A Play On Architecture, Alexander Coulombe

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Not Included

Graduate Sessions 10: Preston Scott Cohen, Mark D. Linder, James Lucas

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

Preston Scott Cohen, founder of Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., is the Chair of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is the author of Contested Symmetries and numerous theoretical and historical essays as well as the designer of several significant cultural institutions, urban plans, and residences for which he has received awards and honors including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture.

George Croll Baum: Building A Greater Gettysburg, Abraham M. Apfel

Hidden in Plain Sight Projects

On November 16th, 1926 George Croll Baum died. In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania the local newspaper covered his death. The Gettysburgian, the paper for Gettysburg College reported that Henry W.A. Hanson, the college president, was “deeply distressed and further noted that Baum's death 'touched the hearts of all that knew him with deep regret.'" Within a month Dr. Hanson had already ordered three memorial plaques to be placed on the campus. Baum's family tried to help pay for them. Hanson refused the money. In a correspondence with Baum‟s brother about the plaques, Hanson told him, “What I did for your brother …

University Of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries Master Plan, Shirley Dugdale, Gerald Jay Schafer, Bryan Harvey, James Cahill, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Leslie Horner Button, Theresa Warner, Pam Rooney, John Cunningham

Campus Planning Reports and Plans

Amherst Libraries, which is on the edge of significant change moving into a new era serving scholars, researchers and learners in the 21st Century. Over the last decade the Library has been a leader in many initiatives: increasing development of digital resources; collaborating with the Five Colleges Consortium, which was one of the first in the country to develop a shared book depository; developing a highly successful Learning Commons that engages partners in providing a broad range, of services and settings for learners; providing services through partners welcomed into library facilities, such the peer learning activities of the Learning Resources …

Resistance: Contemporary Architecture:Sustaining Identity 2, Jim Roche

Articles

Economic globalisation has facilitated a glut of ‘spectacle’ works of architecture worldwide that often fail to celebrate the genius loci of places or the divergence of human culture. With the current crisis in world capitalism causing a meltdown in the mad rush to overbuild our physical environment it is pertinent to consider once again that architecture can actually contribute to a broader existential understanding.

A recent one-day conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London posited such a proposition. Curated by the Finnish writer and theorist, Juhani Pallasmaa and moderated by Jonathan Glancy, the Architecture and Design Editor of …

The Thinking Hand: Book Review, Jim Roche

Articles

In this new book Juhani Pallasmaa continues his phenomenological exploration begun in ‘The Eyes of the Skin (2005)’, with the ‘Thinking Hand’ here proffered as a metaphor for his contention that all our senses, have innate imbedded crucial skills which help us perform the most basic daily tasks – and to create inspired works of art and architecture.

Book Review—Alexei Lidov, Hierotopy: Spatial Icons And Images-Paradigms In Byzantine Culture., Jelena Bogdanović

Jelena Bogdanović

After founding the Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture in Moscow in 1991, the historian and theoretician of art Alexei Lidov has embarked vigorously into pioneering multidisciplinary and phenomenological research of relics and miraculous icons that are, arguably, the most fascinating and controversial objects within Christianity.

The Performativity Of Shrines In A Byzantine Church: The Shrines Of St. Demetrios / Перформативность Усыпальниц В Византийской Церкви: Святилища И Реликварии Св. Димитрия, Jelena Bogdanović

Jelena Bogdanović

Within the Byzantine ecclesiastical tradition, shrines — architectural structures which both enclosed and revealed saints’ remains — defined human bodies within the church space in a remarkable way. Starting in the fourth century, it became customary to exhume and move entire bodies, to permit their fragmentation, and to expose them in architectural settings other than the altar table in the sanctuary space. This practice echoed popular and private piety, which included reporting of miracles of saintly relics that recalled Gospels’ miracles and the hope for corporeal salvation. -- В византийской церковной традиции усыпальницы представляли собой архитектурные конструкции, которые одновременно и …

Art And Architecture: Russia, Jelena Bogdanović

Jelena Bogdanović

Receiving Christianity only in 988/9, the East Slavic Rus' expressly appropriated art and architecture based on Byzantine models and elaborated their own styles. *Kiev, *Novgorod, and *Vladimir (Suzdalia) define the major foci of Rus' accomplishments in the pre-Mongolian period, before the 1230s. Only after the battle at *Kulikovo (1380) did monumental arts revive. And only when Prince Ivan the Great (r. 1462–1505) commissioned architects Aristotele Fioravanti and Alevisio Novi to work in the *Kremlin did the Italian Renaissance significantly influence Russian architecture.

Art And Architecture: Serbian, Jelena Bogdanović

Jelena Bogdanović

From the 9th-century conversion to Christianity until the 11th century, the ecclesiastical art and architecture of the Serbs, both Orthodox and Roman Catholic, shared the concurrent accomplishments of the Croats, Latins, and Greeks. All of these groups cohabited the territories between the rivers Bojana and Cetina in Duklja (Zeta, Montenegro), Zahumlje (Herzegovina), and their littoral. Wall *paintings, donor *portraits, inscriptions in Greek and Latin, and architectural *sculpture on *windows, portals, capitals, *chancel screens, *ciboria, and baptismal fonts, reveal influences of pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Byzantine models. Instructive examples come from the 9th-century *rotunda of St. Triphon at Kotor (809?), replaced by …

From Traditional To Today: Revelation From Chinese Gardendesign, Bo Yang, N J. Volkman

Bo Yang

China, like many other nations, struggled in the twentieth century with defining an indigenous landscape design tradition. This was particularly true in addressing urban open space design after China implemented the Open Door Policy in the late 1970s, when Chinese garden design traditions became largely neglected. The objective of this study is to determine whether the traditional design approach could still effectively serve as modern design inspiration. Built upon a previous study by Wu (1999), our study is a reflective critique on modern Chinese urban public space design. We compare major types of traditional and modern Chinese urban open spaces. …

The Architecture Of Connecticut College, Thomas Blake Mcdonald

Architectural Studies Honors Papers

The Connecticut College campus has changed dramatically in the last century. Originally a women’s college design as a series of Gothic quadrangles inspired by the examples of prestigious English universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, development changed course dramatically in the 1920s and 1930s, as inwardly focused designs gave way to a sweeping Campus Green modeled after Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. While the Green continued to serve as the organizing spine of the campus, by the midcentury the College had introduced Modernist buildings to facilitate both coeducation and expanding curriculums. This thesis starts from the premise that these changes …

From Ark To Art : The 20-Year Journey Of The Civic, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, From Jewish Temple To Multi-Purpose Community Facility, John J. Boyle Iii

Cleveland Memory

The Civic is a former Jewish temple located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The building was close to being abandoned and possibly torn down after its former congregation built a new facility farther out in the suburbs. This study describes how a former temple came to serve the community in a new and different way in the secular world. This study will chronicle the Civic as a historical building; describe the efforts to remake it into a multi-purpose building that is a community asset; and serve as a model to other communities interested in adapting …

Design And Technology Workshops 2006|2010, Mark D. Linder

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

Design and technology workshops are a key feature to the Syracuse Architecture M.Arch 1 program. All first and second year students and their faculty participate in these two-day events that reinforce the need to integrate all aspects of the core curriculum.

Polish Influence On American Synagogue Architecture, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Poland came to America after 1880. Many built synagogues with details recalling synagogues in their homeland. Immigrant artisans brought motifs and methods of Poland. Many of these synagogues were small, so the relationship to Polish art was on the inside in the painted and carved decoration. Established architects also had access to Polish synagogues as sources. With publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-06) images of Polish synagogues, such as the Warsaw’s Tlomackie Street Synagogue, became part of many Jewish libraries. More Polish influence came in the 1950s. Most architects were building modern synagogues, …

Medieval Synagogues In The Mediterranean Region, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Throughout the Middle Ages, the synagogue developed as the central identifying institution and physical building for Jews, replacing the still yearned for but increasingly distant Jerusalem Temple as the focus of Jewish identity. Equally important, the synagogue became the symbol par excellance of the Jews and their community for the Christian (or Muslim) majority populations in the countries where Jews were settled. For Christians, the synagogue was a Jewish church, but much more so, it came to symbolize in opposition all that the church represented.

Though relatively little known today, medieval synagogues were not symbolic abstractions to the men and …

Review: Richard Whitman, Architecture, Print Culture, And The Public Sphere In Eighteenth-Century France, Jean-François Bédard

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

This review of Richard Whitman's Architecture, Print Culture, and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France (Routledge, 2007) examines the relationship between architectural discourse and political power in Frame from 1671 until the end of the ancient regime. The volume successfully foregrounds the socio-political functions of architectural writing, though the use of Habermas' thesis proves to be less convincing. Some of his arguments also tend to be simplistic or schematics .Nonetheless, this volume is a valuable contribution to the study of French architecture during the eighteenth century.