Accommodating Strangers: An Investigation into the Architectures of Hospitality and the Domestic Environment

Abstract

is thesis considers a selection of architectures of hospitality within a cultural and social context. It is specifically interested in interior architecture as a mode of architectural practice and examines each building type in terms of the interior mechanisms at play. Rather than a comprehensive history, the thesis evolves as an exploration of key moments within differing architectures of hospitality. The research documents the traditionally close relationship between the domestic dwelling and hospitable institutions in order to investigate the question, can the contemporary house become both domestic dwelling and public institution? Both writing and drawing are used to explore the ideas of openness, division, security, privacy and freedom which the thesis asserts are dominant mechanisms at play in this history of hospitality architecture. These mechanisms persist throughout this thesis as reoccurring figures within the separate building types and the timeframes analysed, forming a common thread which structures this thesis.