Architectural Advocacy: Public Buildings as Normative Communication
type: CreativeWork
description: Public architecture is intrinsically an issue of communication, and both are of keen importance to contemporary public life. Few communications scholars consider public buildings as communicative media, but doing so would begin dialogues on how to broaden the influence of both communication research and architecture among essential, nonexpert audiences. Further, a public architecture expressive of certain durable values can and should be at the forefront of the public realm. In light of heightened visual expectations and contemporary sensibilities fostered and reflected by mass media, utilizing architecture's great ability to communicate is the way to trumpet built space's role in civics. Written for the architectural nonexpert, this dissertation explores these issues in terms of architecture, qualitative communicative theory, history, and ethnography. Provocative public buildings and a theory called architectural advocacy provide broad conceptual guidelines.
abstract: Public architecture is intrinsically an issue of communication, and both are of keen importance to contemporary public life. Few communications scholars consider public buildings as communicative media, but doing so would begin dialogues on how to broaden the influence of both communication research and architecture among essential, nonexpert audiences. Further, a public architecture expressive of certain durable values can and should be at the forefront of the public realm. In light of heightened visual expectations and contemporary sensibilities fostered and reflected by mass media, utilizing architecture's great ability to communicate is the way to trumpet built space's role in civics. Written for the architectural nonexpert, this dissertation explores these issues in terms of architecture, qualitative communicative theory, history, and ethnography. Provocative public buildings and a theory called architectural advocacy provide broad conceptual guidelines.
author: Berman, Scott Joseph
language: eng
keywords: Architecture
date published: 2015-09-28T15:15:50Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:26:27Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/86612