Architecture & Landscapes, 1750–1890 (370-1-1)

Instructors

Hollyamber Kennedy

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-339: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of major developments in architectural, urban, and landscape history, from 1750 to 1890. Charting a period of significant change that animated architectural discourse and practice, students will explore the highly innovative and experimental ways in which key architects and planners responded to the challenges of a rapidly changing and globalizing world and to the possibilities introduced by new technologies and materials. While this course focuses on developments that took place within the European and North American frame, they are situated in relation to global processes including trade, imperialism, nationalism, migration, and industrialization. Each lecture is organized around defining transformations in architectural culture during this period: We will explore how the era of revolutions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries expanded the role of architecture in the creation of new types of public and political space; how industrial production and prefabrication gave rise to radically new architectural vocabularies and catalyzed debates about national styles and aesthetic and environmental "character"; and how new housing, labor, and urban reform movements, such as utopian socialism, offered visionary spatial strategies in pursuit of an elusive social equality. This course prioritizes discussion and critical reflection and emphasizes the study of primary sources.

Class Materials (Required)

Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture, 1750-1890, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0192842226

Class Notes

There is no waitlist for this course.

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area