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Great expectations : provisional modernism and the reception of J.J.P. Oud
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004)
My dissertation analyzes the reception of the work of J.J.P. Oud (1890-1963), the modern Dutch architect, by examining the systems of dissemination and reception of modern European architecture from 1910 to 1953. Reception ...
Music-listening systems
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000)
When human listeners are confronted with musical sounds, they rapidly and automatically orient themselves in the music. Even musically untrained listeners have an exceptional ability to make rapid judgments about music ...
The jungle in the clearing : space, form and democracy in America, 1940-1949
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001)
Combining aesthetic theory with theories of the public sphere, this dissertation examines the brief appearance of a publicly empathetic civic realm in the United States during the 1940s. The argument begins with a reevaluation ...
Performative monuments : public art, commemoration, and history in postwar Europe
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009)
The performative monument, as I term an emergent genre of interactive public actions, rests on a new notion of agency in public space, in which political responsibility is performed by historically aware individuals in ...
After the copy : creativity, originality and the labor of appropriation : Dafen Village, Shenzhen, China (1989-2010)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010)
Since 1989, Dafen village in Shenzhen, China, has supplied millions of hand-painted oil-on-canvas paintings each year to global consumer markets. Accused of copying Western masterpieces, and spurred by the Chinese party-state's ...
On the epistemological significance of aesthetic values in architectural theory
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000)
This dissertation examines the epistemological significance of "truth," "rationality," and the "aesthetic" first in the nineteenth-century definitions of the nature of Gothic and, then in more recent twentieth-century ...
Monumentality and its shadows : a quest for modern Greek architectural discourse in nineteenth-century Athens (1834-1862)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000)
The dissertation traces the sources of modern Greek architectural discourse in the first period of the modern Greek State following Independence and under the monarchy of Bavarian King Othon I (1834-1862). Its intent is ...
Tactile, spatial interfaces for computer-aided design : superimposing physical media and computation
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
Computer-aided design (CAD) systems have become invaluable in three-dimensional creative design fields such as architecture and landscape architecture. However, these digital tools have not replaced the use of physical ...
Categorical organization and machine perception of oscillatory motion patterns
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000)
Many animal behaviors consist of using special patterns of motion for communication, with certain types of movements appearing widely across animal species. Oscillatory motions in particular are quite prevalent, where many ...
Designing aesthetically pleasing freeform surfaces in a computer environment
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001)
Statement: If computational tools are to be employed in the aesthetic design of freeform surfaces, these tools must better reflect the ways in which creative designers conceive of and develop such shapes. In this thesis, ...