What is architecture made of? This course explores this apparently simple question by excavating the production processes, politics, and histories of materials such as wood, stone, steel, aluminum, concrete, glass, iron, plastic, asbestos, brick, and more. We will follow the tracks of architectural and landscape scholars such as Jane Hutton, Kiel Moe, Peter Christensen, Sarah Lopez, Adrian Forty, and Mimi Sheller. We’ll also explore theories of “new materialism” and ecological and landscape theory, including the work of thinkers such as Jane Bennett, Bruno Latour, and Anna Tsing. In addition to reading, thinking, and writing about materials, we will take seriously the philosophy of “materialism,” by venturing into the world to encounter matter in its various states and situations--from landscapes of extraction to processing to construction to decay.

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