The significance of the "temple idea" in William Lethaby's Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891)

In Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891), the English architect and theorist William Lethaby (1857-1931) developed a syncretic theory of modern architectural invention in which the subjective world of the 'imagined' is reconciled with the objective or 'known'. Lethaby's thesis was motivated by a desire to work the contrasts generated from John Ruskin's (1819- 1900) Victorian imagination into a systematic theory of design. The vehicle which enabled this reconciliation was the temple idea, an architectural construct demonstrating the two ways of seeing inherent in mythic man's [sic] engagement with nature and its subsequent translation into the architectural form

Visualising the critical: artistic convention and eclecticism in Oscar Wilde’s writings on the decorative arts

In the mid-nineteenth century, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) published his scientific study, Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe (1849). In this text Humboldt inverted the Romantic doctrine that associated imagination or artistic agency with a superior faculty and artistic genius with the gifted few. Arguing that the imagination was present within all people, but that it often lay dormant, especially among the masses, Humboldt also suggested it could be activated by contrasting botanical species from tropical and temperate climates. Such juxtapositions, he believed, could induce “more vivid impressions in the minds of [the] less highly gifted . . . heightening their powers of artistic creation” (Humboldt 454). This idea built upon his hypothesis that the greater a region’s biodiversity, the better an individual may grasp the inherent unity binding nature’s infinite variety. Seeking the similarities binding “strongly contrasting forms” the “spontaneous impressions of the untutored mind” would lead, “like the laborious deductions of the cultivated intellect, to the same intimate persuasion, that one sole and indissoluble chain binds together all nature” (5–6)

Recollecting Home, curated by Deborah van der Plaat, Nicole Sully and Andrew Wilson. In Home: A Suburban Obsession, curated by Chenoa Pettrup and Adam Jefford

Recollecting Home Research Background The Frank and Eunice Corley collection consists of approximately 61,000 photographs of houses taken in Queensland suburbs in the 1960s and 70s and sold to households as calendars and Christmas cards. Consisting of images that didn't sell, and which were retained by Frank Corley for taxation purposes, it is estimated that the complete collection approached 300,000 images. Frank, in a pink Cadillac, drove the suburban streets of Brisbane (and a number of Queensland towns) documenting every house that could be seen from the street. Eunice, based in a mobile dark room parked strategically in each suburb, developed and printed the film, and a team of salespeople worked the suburbs selling the images. While Frank and Eunice’s project was primarily an entrepreneurial one, the collection is valued for the stories it tells of Queensland’s suburbs, its heterogenous and complex nature, and the lifestyles it fostered. While the photographer/s had recorded spools and street locations, the collection was uncatalogued. Limited research on social histories emerging from the collection been undertaken by the Annerley Stephens History Group and SLQ volunteers. Home: A Suburban Obsession explores the collection and how it is used and interpreted by various agents including researchers, artists, designers, educators and community groups. The Home exhibition consists of three ‘acts’. The first two acts, curated by Chenoa Pettrup and Adam Jefford from the State Library, comprise an introduction to the Frank and Eunice Corley and their enterprise, and a selection of specially commissioned artworks inspired by their work. The third called Recollecting Home, was curated by Deborah van der Plaat, Nicole Sully and Andrew Wilson from the ATCH Research Centre and School of Architecture at the University of Queensland. Research Contribution Recollecting Home is made up off 11 curated sets of photographic images that showcase 490 photos from the Corley collection and new photography. These were supported by a series of cabinets housing related imagery, ephemera and publications sourced from SLQ, other public institutions, and private collections. The panels explore a number of research themes. These include: ‘Artists in the Suburbs,’ which delves into a selection of parallel explorations of man-made environments by artists from across the globe including the German photographers Bernd and Hilda Becher, the American artists Ed Ruscha and Todd Hido, and Australian photographers John Gollings and Tracey Moffat (whose 2008 image First Jobs: Selling Aluminium Siding is based on an image from the Corley collection and which captures residential housing in the Brisbane suburb of Norman Park; attributes associated with the 'Queensland house', including 'screening,' 'under the house,' and 'open windows' and which speak of lifestyles and modes of living peculiar to the Queensland state; 'Not the Queensland House,' a set of images which highlight the diversity of forms and materials that contribute to the complexity of the Queensland suburb; and 'Suburbs in Transition,' a series of photographs which capture moments of change in Queensland’s suburbs of the 60s and 70s and which begin to highlight some of the distinctions (real and imagined) between “old” and “new” suburbia. New photography by Paul Dielemans extends these observations into the present day. Digital stories and supporting displays that tell the real-life stories of occupants of homes found in the Corley collection complete the sequence. Research Significance Generating new histories of Queensland’s suburban architecture, research significance is demonstrated by the: • Promotion by State Library of Queensland as a major exhibition and shown for 8 months from December 2018 to July 2019. • Supported by a vibrant selection of public programs and engagement opportunities. • Reviewed by national journals and local and national broadsheets. • Generated new communities of interest in the architecture, social histories and lifestyles of the Queensland suburbs and increased heritage awareness of this work. • Activated the public’s interest in the collections of the State Library of Queensland and brought to their attention the diverse uses of their collections by different agents. • Inclusion of the exhibition in the program supporting the 2019 Asia Pacific Architecture Forum. • Imagery externally sourced for the exhibition to permanently acquired by the State Library of Queensland

Age at menopause and lung function: a Mendelian randomisation study

In observational studies, early menopause is associated with lower forced vital capacity (FVC) and a higher risk of spirometric restriction, but not airflow obstruction. It is, however, unclear if this association is causal. We therefore used a Mendelian randomisation (MR) approach, which is not affected by classical confounding, to assess the effect of age at natural menopause on lung function.We included 94\u200a742 naturally post-menopausal women from the UK Biobank and performed MR analyses on the effect of age at menopause on forced expiratory volume in 1\u2005s (FEV1), FVC, FEV1/FVC, spirometric restriction (FV

Epigenome-wide association study of lung function level and its change

Previous reports link differential DNA methylation (DNAme) to environmental exposures that are associated with lung function. Direct evidence on lung function DNAme is, however, limited. We undertook an agnostic epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) on pre-bronchodilation lung function and its change in adults. In a discovery-replication EWAS design, DNAme in blood and spirometry were measured twice, 6-15 years apart, in the same participants of three adult population-based discovery cohorts (n=2043). Associated DNAme markers (p EWAS signals were enriched for smoking-related DNAme. We replicated 57 lung function DNAme markers in adult, but not childhood samples, all previously associated with smoking. Markers not previously associated with smoking failed replication. cg05575921 (AHRR (aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor)) showed the statistically most significant association with cross-sectional lung function (FEV1/FVC: pdiscovery=3.96x10(-21) and pcombined=7.22x10(-50)). A score combining 10 DNAme markers previously reported to mediate the effect of smoking on lung function was associated with lung function (FEV1/FVC: p=2.65x10(-20)). Our results reveal that lung function-associated methylation signals in adults are predominantly smoking related, and possibly of clinical utility in identifying poor lung function and accelerated decline. Larger studies with more repeat time-points are needed to identify lung function DNAme in never-smokers and in children.Peer reviewe

A state of critical becoming: colour, convention (Orientalism) and eclecticism in the aesthetic interior

The aim of the current paper is to draw parallels between Victorian understandings of the imagination and more recent attempts by the art historian and theorist Barbara Maria Stafford (2001) to revive the ancient ideal of Analogy; a ‘metaphoric and metamorphic practice for weaving discordant particulars into a partial concordance’ while avoiding the ‘subsumption of two inferior, dichotomous terms into a superior third.’ The significance of Analogy for Stafford is two fold: First, in an age in which ‘we possess no language for talking about resemblance, only an exaggerated awareness of difference’ it offers new opportunities to [re] discover a rhetoric that speaks of ‘sameness in otherness,’ a topic once central to western philosophy, theology, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Secondly, and possibly more importantly for Stafford, it helps to visualise the ‘connective aspects of cognition’ or the ‘pictorial nature of consciousness.