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Contemporary Architecture and Critical Debate posted by duggu on 12/1/2007

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Course Highlights

This course features a complete list of readings from the class, and a series of lecture notes which list all the images and precedents discussed in the class.

Course Description

This class, required of all Master of Architecture students, presents a critical review of works, theories, and polemics in architecture in the aftermath of World War II. The aim is to present a historical understanding of the period, and to develop a meaningful framework to assess contemporary issues in architecture. Special attention will be paid to historiographic questions of how architects construe the terms of their "present."

*Some translations represent previous versions of courses.

Syllabus

Introduction: Doing History Backwards

The course will look at key shifts in architectural thought and debates over the last four decades. The approach of the course will be to address current day problems, projecting back into the past in order to offer something of a historical "frame" to understand the present. The course begins by looking at four or five issues in architecture understood to be critical for present times: globalization, technology, cognitive sciences, the environment, and cultural politics. The course then reaches back over the last fifty years to establish precedents for these current-day preoccupations in architectural and critical terms. The above topics will be seen to have formal or theoretical resonances in a host of architectural movements: the technofantasist movements of the 1960s, "post-modern" semiosis, phenomenology, Third World "social modernism", vernacularism, post-modernism, cybernetics, and so on. Students will look at buildings, writing and movements as part of the evolving critiques of modernism from the 1950s onwards; in doing so, the students will come to examine the manner in which modernism was both critically unraveled and reinvented at different moments of its aftermath.

Course Requirements

Table for Syllabus Section
ACTIVITIES	PerCENTAGES
Two Presentations (Leading the Class in Debate and Discussion)	20%
Two Exams	30%
Regular Attendance	15%
Final Paper	35%

Calendar

Table for Calendar Section
LEC #	TOPICS	Discussion
1	Introduction
2	Megacities
3	Blobs, Curves and the Formless	Buildings to Study: Frank Gehry - Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; Greg Lynn - Artists' Space Installation, New York
4	Theory Outtake 1
5	Bodies
6	CTRL [Space]
7	Environmentalism
8	Architecture and Deconstruction	Buildings to Study: Bernard Tschumi - Parc de la Villette; Projects featured in the MOMA show of 1988
9	The New York Five	Buildings to Study: Peter Eisenman - House II, VI, X; Charles Gwathmey; John Hejduk; Michael Graves - Benacerraf House addition
10	First Interim Exam	Questions will be based on readings. Length of total required responses: 1500 words. Students will have a choice between more standard, explicatory questions relating to the readings already done, or more interpretive essay questions. The former will have higher weight.
11	Architecture and Post-Modernism	Buildings to Study: James Stirling - Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; Robert Venturi - National Gallery Extension, London
12	Kenneth Frampton and Critical Regionalism	Buildings to Study: Alvar Aalto - Saynatsalo Town Hall; Tadao Ando - Koshino House, Osaka; Jörn Utzon - Bagsvaerd Church
13	Modernisms Elsewhere	Buildings to Study: Jo Noero - Soweto Career Center, House Nxumalo; Charles Correa - Belapur Township
14	Vernacularism	Building to Study: Hassan Fathy - New Gourna Township
15	Critiques of Modernism	Buildings to Study: Atelier Lucien Kroll - Medical Faculty Building, University of Louvain; Ralph Erskine - Byker Wall, Newcastle; Candilis, Josic and Woods - Berlin Freie University
16	Theory Outtake 2
17	Phenomenology and Place
18	Minimalism and Monumentality - Louis Kahn	Buildings to Study: Louis Kahn - Salk Institute, Kimbell Museum, Dhaka National Assembly Building, Philips Exeter Building
19	Second Interim Exam	Questions will be based on readings. Length of total required responses: 1500 words. Students will have a choice between more standard, explicatory questions relating to the readings already done, or more interpretive essay questions. The former will have higher weight.
20	Voyages into the Surface - Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown	Buildings to Study: Venturi and Denise Scott Brown - Vanna Venturi House, Guild Hall
21	Aldo Rossi and the Archetypes of Memory	Building to Study: Aldo Rossi - San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena
22	Manfredo Tafuri and the Venice School	Building to Study: Carlo Aymonino and Aldo Rossi, Gallaratese quarter, Milan, 1967-73.
23	Theory Outtake 3
24	Superstudio - Italy between First and Third Worlds	Buildings to Study: Compare Archigram and Superstudio Projects
25	1968
26	Traces on the City	Buildings to Study: Situationist projects; Projects by Constant
27	Technofantasy / Megastructure	Buildings to Study: Cedric Price - The Fun Palace; Archigram projects
28	Late CIAM and the Architecture of the Welfare State	Buildings to Study: James Stirling - Engineering Building, Leicester University, History Faculty Building, Cambridge University; Alison and Peter Smithson - Sheffield University Extension
29	Final Paper (4500 words) Due	Paper should be a research paper on a topic decided upon by consultation between the student, the instructor and the teaching assistant.

Discussion Group

Educators, students, and self-learners interested in "Course 4.665: Contemporary Architecture and Critical Debate" are invited to interact with others utilizing these materials in their teaching and learning through the Discussion Group for this course.

This service, offered by MIT OCW and hosted by the Open Sustainable Learning Opportunities Research Group in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University, offers individuals around the world the opportunity to connect with each other, collaborate, form study groups, and receive support for their use of MIT OCW materials in formal and informal educational settings.

OLS is a research project that is focused on building "social software" that enables informal learning communities to form around existing open educational content. The fundamental premise of OLS is that full educational opportunity requires a user to have the social access to other people who can answer questions and provide support. Since the sponsors of free and open Web-based materials cannot typically provide this access, the social support must come from other users. Therefore, OLS:

Operates independently of MIT OCW
Requires users to register and login to participate
Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting program
Does not provide formal access to MIT or Utah State University faculty

Connect to the Discussion Group for Course 4.665: Contemporary Architecture and Critical Debate now.

Open Learning Support is funded by a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Readings

Table for Readings
LEC #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
1	Introduction
2	Megacities	Koolhaas, Rem. "Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis… or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa." In S, M, L, XL. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995. ISBN: 1885254865. Lee, Ching Kwan. "Factory Regimes of Chinese Capitalism; Different Cultural Logics in Labour Control." In Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. Edited by Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini. New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 0415915430.
3	Blobs, Curves and the Formless	Lynn, Greg. "Animate Form." In Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. ISBN: 1568980833. Krauss, Rosalind, and Yves-Alain Bois. Introduction - "The Use Value of the Formless," and Conclusion - "The Destiny of the Informe." In Formless: A User's Guide. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. ISBN: 0942299434. Suggested Readings Foster, Hal. "Part 1: Architecture and Design." In Design and Crime. London: Verso, 2002.
4	Theory Outtake 1	Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. ISBN: 0415903874. Plant, Sadie. "Anna 1," "Gambling on the Future," "Binaries," "Supporting Evidence," "Genderquake," "Cultures," "Nets," "Digits," "Holes," "Cyborg Manifestoes," "Programming Language," "Shuttle Systems," and "Casting on." In Zeros + Ones. New York: Doubleday, 1997. ISBN: 0385482604.
5	Bodies	Fuss, Diana, and Joel Sanders. "Bergasse 19: Inside Freud's Office." In Stud: Architectures of Masculinity. Edited by Joel Sanders. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. ISBN: 1568980760. Djebar, Assia. "Postface: Forbidden Gaze, Severed Sound." In Women of Algiers in Their Apartment. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1992. ISBN: 0813914027.
6	CTRL [Space]	Keenan, Thomas. "Publicity and Indifference: Media, Surveillance, 'Humanitarian Intervention." In CTRL [Space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. Edited by Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne, and Peter Weibel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 0262621657. Wodiczko, Krzysztof. "Designing for the City of Strangers." In Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 0262731223. Suggested Readings Manovich, Lev. "Modern Surveillance Machines: Perspective, Radar, 3-D Computer Graphics, and Computer Vision." In CTRL [Space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. Edited by Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne, and Peter Weibel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
7	Environmentalism	"Access to Tools." In The Original Whole Earth Catalogue, Special 30th Anniversary Issue. Edited by Stewart Brand, and Peter Warshall. Whole Earth, 1998. ISBN: 1892907054. Reinhold, Martin. "Environment, c. 1971." In Grey Room 14 (Winter 2004). Papanek, Victor. "Environmental Design: Pollution, Crowding, Ecology." Chapter 10 in Design for the Real World. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1984. ISBN: 0897331532.
8	Architecture and Deconstruction	Derrida, Jacques. "Point de folie - Maintenant l'architecture." La Case Vide: La Villete (1985). Edited by Bernard Tschumi. Reprinted in Architecture Theory since 1968. Edited by by K. Michael Hays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262082616. Speaks, Michael. "Negotiating the Hypertext: Bernard Tschumi's La Villette." In Context and Modernity. Papers from the Delft International Working Seminar on Critical Regionalism, 12-15 June 1990. Suggested Readings Evans, Robin. "Persistent Breakage." In The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.
9	The New York Five	Eisenman, Peter. "Aspects of Modernism: Maison Dom-ino and the Self-Referential Sign." In Oppositions Reader. Edited by K. Michael Hays. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. ISBN: 1568981538. Rowe, Colin. Introduction to Five Architects. Reprinted in Architecture Theory since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262082616. Suggested Reading Rowe, Colin "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa." In The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.
10	First Interim Exam
11	Architecture and Post-Modernism	Jencks, Charles. "Part Three: Post-Modern Architecture." In The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. 6th ed. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. ISBN: 0847813592. Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Edited by Hal Foster. Seattle, WA: The Bay Press, 1983. ISBN: 094192002X. Huyssen, Andreas. "Mapping the Postmodern." In A Post-Modern Reader. Edited by Charles Jencks. London: Academy Editions, 1982. ISBN: 1854901079. Suggested Readings Habermas, Jürgen. "Modernism and Postmodernism Architecture." In Architecture Theory Since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays, 1981 reprint. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998, pp. 412-426. Baudrillard, Jean. "The Ecstasy of Communication." In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Edited by Hal Foster. Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1983.
12	Kenneth Frampton and Critical Regionalism	Frampton, Kenneth. "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance." In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Edited by Hal Foster. Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1983. ISBN: 094192002X. ———. "The Status of Man and his Objects." Reprinted in Architecture Theory since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262082616. Suggested Readings Lefaivre, Liane, and Alexander Tzonis. "Why Critical Regionalism Today?" In Architecture + Urbanism, May 1990.
13	Modernisms Elsewhere	Fraser, Valerie. "Brazil." In Building The New World: Studies in the Modern Architecture of Latin America, 1930-1960. London: Verso, 2000. ISBN: 1859843077. Elleh, Nnamdi. "Architecture and Nationalism in Africa, 1945-1994." In The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994. Edited by Okwui Enwezor. New York: Prestel Verlag, 2001. ISBN: 3791325027. Suggested Readings Eleb, Monique: "An Alternative to Functionalist Universalism: Écochard, Candilis and ATBAT-Afrique." In Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture. Edited by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. Serageldin, Ismail. "The Architecture of Empowerment: A Survey." In The Architecture of Empowerment. London: Academy Editions, 1997.
14	Vernacularism	Rudofsky, Bernard. Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico Press, 1988. ISBN: 0826310044. Rapoport, Amos. "Alternative Theories of House Form," and "Socio-cultural Factors and House Form." Chapter 2, and 3 in House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969. ISBN: 0133956733.
15	Critiques of Modernism	Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. pp. 10-74. ISBN: 0195019199. Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Selections from Collage City. Reprinted in Architecture Theory since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262082616. Lynch, Kevin. "City Form," Chapter IV in The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960. ISBN: 0262620014. Suggested Readings Jane Jacobs. Selections from Death and Life of American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1963. Chapters 6, 8, 13, 16.
16	Theory Outtake 2	McLuhan, Marshall and Lewis H. Lapham. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. ISBN: 0262631598. Wiener, Norbert. Chapter I, "Cybernetics in History," and Chapter II, "Progress and Entropy." In The Human Use of Human Being: Cybernetics and Society. New York: Doubleday, 1954.
17	Phenomenology and Place	Frampton, Kenneth. "On Heidegger." Oppositions 4, October 1974. Norberg-Schulz, Christian. "The Phenomenon of Place." In Architecture Association Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1976). Reprinted in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Edited by Kate Nesbitt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. ISBN: 156898054X. Suggested Readings Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1980.
18	Minimalism and Monumentality - Louis Kahn	Kahn, Louis. "Monumentality." In Architecture Culture 1943-1968. Edited by Joan Ockman with Edward Eigen. New York: Columbia Books of Architecture/Rizzoli, 1993. ISBN: 0847815226. Bonnefoi, Christian. "Louis Kahn and Minimalism." Oppositions 24, Spring 1981. Norberg-Schulz, Christian. "Kahn, Heidegger, and the Language of Architecture." Oppositions 18, Fall 1979. Suggested Readings Lobell, Mimi. "Kahn, Penn and the Philadelphia School." Oppositions 4, October 1974.
19	Second Interim Exam
20	Voyages into the Surface - Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown	Venturi, Robert. Selections from Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977. ISBN: 0870702815. Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. "Theory of Ugly and Ordinary and Related and Contrary Theories." In Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977, 1972. ISBN: 0262220202. Suggested Readings Scott Brown, Denise. "Learning from Pop." In Casabella 35, no. 359-360 (December 1971).
21	Aldo Rossi and the Archetypes of Memory	Rossi, Aldo. "The Structure of Urban Artifacts." Chapter 1 in The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. ISBN: 0262680432. Moneo, Rafael. "The Idea of Architecture and the Modena Cemetery." Oppositions 5. Reprinted in The Oppositions Reader. Edited by K. Michael Hays. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. ISBN: 1568981538. Tafuri, Manfredo. "The 'Case' of Aldo Rossi." In History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985. Translated by Jessica Levine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. ISBN: 0262200678. Suggested Readings Rossi, Aldo. "The Individuality of Urban Artifacts; Architecture." Chapter 3 in The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984.
22	Manfredo Tafuri and the Venice School	Tafuri, Manfredo. "L'architecture dans le boudoir." In The Sphere and the Labyrinth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. ISBN: 0262700395. Cohen, Jean-Louis. "The Italophiles at Work." Reprinted in Architecture Theory since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262082616. Suggested Readings Tafuri, Manfredo. "Architecture and its Double: Semiology and Formalism." In Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development. Translated by Barbara Luigia La Penta. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979.
23	Theory Outtake 3	Foucault, Michel. "The Subject and Power," and "Space, Knowledge and Power." In Power Vol. 3 of the Essential Works of Focault, 1954-1984. Series Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press, 2000. ISBN: 1565847091. Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." In Lenin and Philosophy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. ISBN: 0902308122.
24	Superstudio - Italy between First and Third Worlds	Lang, Peter, and William Menking. "Only Architecture Will Be Our Lives." In Superstudio: Life Without Objects. Edited by Peter Lang, and William Menking. Milan: Skira, 2003. ISBN: 8884915694. ———. "Suicidal Desires." In Superstudio: Life Without Objects. Edited by Peter Lang, William Menking. Milan: Skira, 2003. ISBN: 8884915694. Ambasz, Emilio, ed. "Counterdesign As Postulation." In Italy: The New Domestic Landscape: Achievements and Problems of Italian Design. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1972, pp. 223-265. ISBN: 0870703935.
25	1968	Genevro, Rosalie. "Introduction." The Inflatable Moment : Pneumatics and Protest in '68. Edited by Marc Dessauce. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. ISBN: 1568981767. Dessauce, Marc. "On Pneumatic Apparitions." In The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in '68. Edited by Marc Dessauce. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. ISBN: 1568981767. Tschumi, Bernard, and Martin Pawley. "The Beaux-Arts Since '68." Architectural Design, July 1971.
26	Traces on the City	Sadler, Simon. "Formulary for a New Urbanism: Rethinking the City." Chapter 2 in The Situationist City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 0262193922. Wigley, Mark. "The Hyper-Architecture of Desire." In Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: Center for Contemporary Art, 1998. ISBN: 9064503435. Suggested Readings Violeau, Jean-Louis. "A Critique of Architecture: The Bitter Victory of the Situationist International." In Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture. Edited by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
27	Technofantasy / Megastructure	Banham, Reyner. "Fun and Flexibility," and "Epilogue: The Meaning of Megastructure." Chapter 5 and Chapter 9 in Megastructures: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976. ISBN: 0500340684. Lopsinger, Mary Louise: "Cybernetic Theory and the Architecture of Performance - Cedric Price's Fun Palace." In Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture. Edited by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. ISBN: 0262072084.
28	Late CIAM and the Architecture of the Welfare State	Smithson, Alison, ed. "CIAM/Team 10." Architectural Design. May 1960, pp. 175-207. Mumford, Eric. "From the 'Heart of the City' to the End of CIAM." In The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 0262133644.
29	Final Paper (4500 words) Due