The paradoxes of Castle Drogo

A project evoking every superlative, Castle Drogo symbolizes the design approaches of Sir Edwin Lutyens, and the shifts in our society’s appreciation of them, better than any other of his works. A neo-medieval castle finished in 1930, it represents the end of an era while at the same time anticipating contemporary architectural principles and...

Humour in Architecture: An analysis of humorous architectural examples throughout different periods.

This thesis examines the role of humour in architectural design. The research question of the thesis is: ‘What can be learned from the integration of humour in architectural design by looking at historical examples?’ Using literary research and case studies from the 1970s to the 2010s, the thesis aims to provide insight into how humour can play...

Research on how sustainability is implemented through participation in the housing cooperative La Borda

The utilization of housing cooperatives, which is a form of affordable housing, has been an effective solution to a portion of Spain's housing crisis both before and after the Global Financial Crisis. La Borda, an innovative participatory design housing cooperative in Barcelona, was constructed in 2018 by architect cooperative LaCol and...

Hermoupolis: A research on the everyday life of the city during the 19th century

This history thesis, through the case study of Hermoupolis, the port city of the island of Syros, investigates the spatial imprint of the social functioning of that region during the 19th century. It is an attempt to study the development of the whole city and the evolution of a network, extending beyond its physical boundaries, when everything...

Gazing Station: Hierarchy and Surveillance in Amsterdam’s Former Post Office

Locality and Identity: Henri Maclaine Pont and the Politics of Representation in the Late Colonial Dutch East Indies

This paper investigates issues of representation, interpretation, and difference in architecture in colonial and racialised environments, through a case study of the work of Dutch engineer, architect, and archaeologist Henri Maclaine Pont in the late colonial Dutch East Indies. Pont extensively surveyed regional Javanese building forms, and...

The New Administrative Capital, An investigation into the triggers of the construction of new capital cities in Egypt and the evolution of the discourse around their development: The Construction and Discourse of New Capital Cities in Egypt

The New Administrative Capital of Egypt is a city from scratch located in the desert, 60 km east from Cairo, set in motion in 2015 and already visible on site. Egypt’s government promotes the new capital as the key to reducing Cairo’s urban load due its explosive overpopulation. The main strategy is to relocate the government buildings from...

‘We came to this land to build and be built’: How architecture influenced the formation of national identity of Israel and vice versa

Aliyah, the great Jewish migration resulting from popularization of Zionism, brought end to the Jewish diaspora in the form, in which it was known before. The massive migration brought large numbers of new settlers to the area of Palestine with the aim of (re)creating their country – Israel. A new country required new infrastructure,...

The Kargadoor: The Kargadoor building in Utrecht as an example of the social construct of space

This research paper focuses on a time in which contentious politics created more tensions between the youth and government, and how this conflict flourished into a social construct of new spaces. These concepts are to be explained further on in the paper. In order to provide an understanding of the relationship between contentious politics and...

Inconspicuous Halidom: The material religion of Catholic barn churches in North Brabant

During the Dutch Reformation, the non-Calvinist religions, including Catholicism, were forbidden to use churches, so they were practised instead in relatively unrecognisable clandestine churches (schuilkerken), one type of which was the barn church (schuurkerk). This sacred space, hidden in the humblest structures, once dotted the Roman Catholic...

Emerging from the western shadows: The rise of Northeastern Morocco through the lens of Oujda

Oujda, situated in the Northeastern region (Oriental) near the Algerian border, has a historical connection to Algeria that is stronger than its connection to the western regions of its own country. However, a difficult border situation has existed between Oujda and Algeria since 1994 due to escalating tensions. This border location has impacted...

Lens and Will: Sigurd Lewerentz’s way of travel

Throughout architectural history, outstanding architects have often been outstanding travelers. Sigurd Lewerentz, a legendary figure in Swedish modern architecture, is undoubtedly one of them. Lewerentz, who started his independent architectural practice in 1910 and died in 1975, lived during an exciting period that saw the emergence of many...

Openness is a matter of Ilumination: The relation between postmemory fiction-writing and spatial studies through the novel Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

This thesis explores the influence of space on the formation and preservation of postmemory through the literary novel Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, adapted to screen by Liev Screiber. The starting point of the research is an attempt at a better understanding of the roles of reality and fiction in the case of Trachimbrod,...

When Regimes Fall Their Statues Fall With Them: The birth, life and death of Lenin in the Republic Square of Yerevan, Armenia

This thesis examines the complex process of memory making and unmaking during Armenia’s early, mid and post-transition periods as a Soviet republic. By positioning the statue of Vladimir Lenin, which once stood at the central square of its capital city, as a focal element of the discourse, this thesis uses the analysis of the bodily interplay...

To what extent has the architectural development in Qatar reflected its foreign policy with a focus on the period from 1995 to 2030?

The paper explores the fragile and complex relationship between modernization, nation-building and internationalism with a specific focus on Qatar. As an emerging powerhouse in the Gulf region, the young nation has proven its political legitimacy on the global stage. In this process, its urban development has played a vital instrument in...

Tahrir Square: The Pulse of Egyptian Identity: By Examining Egypt In 1900s As A French Post-colonial Nation, to what extent did Tahrir square become a symbol of Egyptian Identity

“Squares, boulevards, Favelas, refugee camps - have served throughout history as the setting for political protest and revolt.”(Weizman et al., 2015). These protests play a vital role in identifying what societal and political views a population uphold. Architecture is usually a representation of societal views, incidents and political...

The Historical Journey of San Francisco Chinatown’s Urban Resilience

This thesis examines how and why the ethnic enclave of San Francisco’s (SF) Chinatown persisted to this day, despite continuous forces of urban shrinkage and gentrification in the past decade, that has seen other Chinatowns in the United States gradually disappear. The rich history of SF Chinatown battling a diversity of forces intruding on its...

The mixture of Ottoman, Dutch, and the architect’s features in the design of the Mevlana mosque

This thesis investigates the features of the Rotterdam based Mevlana mosque designed by the Dutch architect Bert Toorman. It aims to clarify to what extent Ottoman and Dutch features are visible in the mosque, including the architect's signature. Extensive literature research has been undertaken to determine the origins of Ottoman architecture,...