Spring 2014

H+U+D CITY SEMINAR

Description:

How do we “read” a city? What is the relationship between downtown and suburb,  rowhouse and ranch house, shopping district and mall, gated community and public  plaza? What is the meaning of place (“neighborhood” or “home”) and how are our lives  defined by it? How do we function as both the producers and products of place? How  does the hand of the past shape the present? Through reading sociological, historical,  theoretical, and primary texts, maps and photographs, and through your ethnographic  explorations and tours of the city, we will explore the presence of the past in the city  around us, the evolution of social, spatial and physical systems, different kinds of urban  and suburban places, and the encoding of wealth and power as well as inequality and  poverty on the urban landscape.

Instructors:

Spring 2014

H+U+D PROBLEMATICS SEMINAR

Description:

This seminar will examine the creation of the literature of modern architecture, emphasizing the diversity of its authors and its location at the intersection of design practice and humanistic scholarship.

As texts, we have chosen a sampling of major writings dating from the nineteenth century until our own time. While the focus will be on the built environment, we shall strive to establish a broad context for our discussion in the history of ideas, and specifically the relationship between artistic theory and praxis in the era when specialization established the boundaries between the intellectual disciplines with which we are familiar today.

The seminar is designed to bring together graduate students from the School of Design and graduate students in the humanities programs of the School of Arts and Sciences. It is sponsored by the Humanties+Urbanism+Design project of the Schools of Design and Arts and Sciences, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation. That project is designed to foster cross-disciplinary discussions of this kind. (cross-listed as ARCH 712-003: Topics in History and Theory)