All the colors, creeds, breeds, and voices become Rangoon; Rangoon was born in Rangoon, Rangoon was raised in Rangoon, Rangoon stood on par with other cities around the world. Proud Rangoon, the son of an urban city: (From Dressmaker Rangoon by Maung Chaw Nwe and translated by Kenneth Wong, 2013)1 The growth of British control […]
The Meiji Restoration The Meiji period (1868–1912) was decisively an era of construction. It saw the military state of the Tokugawa shogunate replaced with a Westernized nation under a restored imperial authority. One of the most urgent tasks facing the Meiji leaders, who were largely drawn from the early samurai class of the Tokugawa Era […]
Henri Labrouste’s Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve is a building of conflicting ideas. On its classical stone exterior the names of 810 authors inscribe a catalog of the most prominent philosophers, scientists and authors of the time. Within its walls, these same author’s works are housed amidst a modern forest of skeletal iron and glass. Just as Labrouste’s […]
Down one of the many paths of Rio de Janeiro’s botanical garden stands a grand neoclassical portal, the arched entrance, classical columns, frieze and pediment are all that remain of the Imperial Academy of Fine Art (figure 1). The plan of the Academy shows that it was once much larger (figure 2), after being built […]
The International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and products of Soil and Mine – referred to as the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 – proudly highlighted the United States’ advancements and achievements, featuring its ability to reunite and resurrect after the American Civil War, but also acted as an “effort to lift the country out of a […]
One of the defining characteristics of 19th century social and cultural thought was a shift in man’s approach towards science and reinterpretation of the relationship between human creation and divine inspiration. The architectural debates that dominated this moment of history are expressed in the Oxford museum’s 1854 competition to create the two-storey natural history museum […]
An Architectural Gesture of British Industrial and Imperial Omnipotence The Great Exhibition of 1851, also known as The Crystal Palace, located in Hyde Park, London, is generally referred to as a renowned architectural gesture of universal peace, welcoming accomplishments in science, technology, and industry.[1] It is known to have “emphasised the commercial importance of more […]