This class will present a history of architecture and urbanism from the Age of Enlightenment to Postmodernity. During these 300 years, the discipline of architecture was cut off from its earlier classical heritage. Tradition and rule were gradually replaced by history and innovation, the fixed criteria of the classical orders supplanted by an endlessly modifiable present. The aim of this course will be to examine critical moments within these creative and intellectual developments. Important issues for discussion will be the rise of industrialism, new communications and structural technologies, and mass urbanization. Other issues discussed will be the development of bourgeois building typologies and values, the influence of aesthetics and politics on design, and, last but not least, the circumstances of individuality and all its transitory and explosive psyches.

In subject:

• Architecture

Undergraduate