Archive Philadelphia: Architectural History & Cultural Institutions

Catalog description

This course combines the idea of a walking seminar with an investigation of how Philadelphia’s cultural and scientific institutions and archives have shaped its urban environment and its cultural and social milieu. Taking advantage of the rich history of archiving and collecting in Philadelphia, we turn from the nineteenth century to ask questions of the twentieth and twenty-first: 1) When (and how) does a body of knowledge crystalize into an archive? 2) How do archives function not only as a reservoir of knowledge but also as an urban catalyst for change? We begin with the foundational ideas and built legacy of Philadelphia’s 19th (and turn of the 20th) century institutions like the Wagner Free Institute of Science, the Mütter Museum, the Free Library, and Ethical Society of Philadelphia. We then explore a collection of alternative “archives” and institutions, mostly from the 20th century, such as the Mother Bethel Church, the Clef Club, the Wooden Shoe Anarchist Bookshop and the Norris Square Neighborhood Garden. What does the arc of archiving in Philadelphia from the 19th to the 21st centuries tell us about how knowledge is stored and shared and the relationship between “archives,” community and urban space? How important are buildings to archives and cultural institutions? What opportunities and what limitations do buildings impose on these organizations? How does gender, race, and class play into the creation and cultivation of archives and institutions past and present? Do these institutions play a role in cultivating a civic imagination and social orientation? If so, how?