Ideas Across Time in Architecture and Urbanism

Catalog description

This course presents a transversal history of ideas, arguments, and visions that shape the built environment within their cultural, technological, and philosophical contexts. Buildings, landscapes, and cities embody ideas about society, culture, technology, and how we should live in the world. Some problems and questions are exemplary of their times; others seem eternal as we continue to grapple with them today. Changes in our ideas and ideals are made visible in our built environment, giving us a unique opportunity to trace their trajectories across time to see 'how we got to now.' The course introduces architectural and urban ideas by exploring and connecting key directions, works, and texts from the Western tradition. By casting a critical eye on where we've been, the course opens new perspectives on what might be next. The course covers a period ranging from ancient Greece and Rome to the present, with emphasis on how the foundations of Western architecture collided with modernity, and how we've dealt with the hereafters of modernity since the mid-20th century. Recurring themes will include the ways in which architectural theory has defined role of the architect, architecture's foundational principles, and the relationships between architectural and urban ideas, aesthetics, and the cultural contexts in which these ideas develop. Major topics will include ancient architectural theory, Renaissance classicism, tectonics and Gothic rationalism, the Beaux-Arts, Neoclassicism and typology, organicism and functionalism, the Modern avant-garde's radical new social and aesthetic visions, the International Style, countermodernisms, phenomenology, techno-utopianism, populism, gender, race, and international post-colonialism. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements for Arts (GA) courses by: expanding knowledge and comprehension of the role of the arts, building competence in analysis, critical thinking and interpretive reasoning through the exploration of creative works; demonstrating the aesthetic, historic, social, and cultural significance of important works of design; and, critically assessing creative works through evaluative processes of analysis and interpretation.