American Architecture

Catalog description

History of the architecture of the United States, as well as its Native American and colonial antecedents. AMST / ARTH 308N American Architecture (3) (GA;GH;US)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This Art History course (cross-listed with American Studies) will cover the history of American architecture and its historical contexts, from its Native American roots and colonial antecedents, through the formation of the United States, to the present. A sample of the topics that will be covered are the architecture of: Native Americans, Spanish Colonial missions, 17th-century Virginia, Puritan New England, Georgian America, Southern Plantations and Slave Cabins, Thomas Jefferson, the new federal city of Washington, D.C., the Greek Revival, the industrial revolution, utopian religious communities such as the Shakers, Gothic Revival cottages and villas, Victorian Philadelphia, Henry Hobson Richardson, the birth of the skyscraper in New York and Chicago, the City Beautiful Movement, Frank Lloyd Wright, Arts & Crafts California, Henry Ford's Michigan, Art Deco New York, Mies van der Rohe and the glass box, Levittown, Disneyland, Louis I. Kahn, Post-Modernism, Frank Gehry, and Green Buildings. Selected major buildings, architects, ideas, and urban developments will be emphasized. Architecture will be considered within the contexts of religion, politics, philosophy, culture, economics, gender, race, society, technology, engineering, landscape architecture, urban planning and interior design. This introductory survey has no prerequisite and is intended for both students of architecture/art and students unfamiliar with the field. This is an Inter-Domain General Education course exploring American architecture from both the perspectives of the Arts (GA) and Humanities (GH). An exploration of the art, aesthetics and styles of American Architecture will be balanced with using architecture as a vehicle for understanding American history, culture, religion, society, and government.