Arthi 5A Introduction to Architecture & Environment
Instructor: Volker M. Welter, Associate Professor
Fall 2003This course will examine the history of built and natural environments as inter-related phenomena. It will explore how architects have positioned architecturally humankind and human societies in relation to the natural and built environment at various cultural moments. The course will focus primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth century, the scope is global.
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Arthi 5A LECTURES
MON 12.30-1.45 pmMON, September 22 Lecture 1:
IntroductionÑWhat is architecture?NATURE IS ARCHITECTURE WED, September 24 Lecture 2:
Architecture and NatureReading:
George Hersey, The Monumental Impulse. Architecture's Biological Roots (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1999), Introduction, pp. xii-xx, chapter 1, pp. 2-39.
MON, September 29 Lecture 3:
Organic architecture IReading:
Lewis Mumford, The Brown Decades. A Study of Arts in America 1865-1895 (1931) (New York: Dover, 1971), chapter 3 'Towards Modern Architecture', pp. 49-82
WED, October 1 Lecture 4:
Organic architecture IIReading:
Bruno Zevi, Towards an Organic Architecture (London: Faber & Faber, 1950), Intermediate Chapter: "Meaning and Scope of the Term Organic in Reference to Architecture', pp. 66-76
BACK TO NATURE MON, October 6 Lecture 5:
Huts, cabins, and other simple housesReading:
Christine Macy and Sarah Bonnemaison, Architecture and Nature. Creating the American Landscape (London: Routledge, 2002), extract from chapter 1 'Exhibiting Wilderness at the Columbian Exposition, 1983, pp. 35-50
WED, October 8 Lecture 6:
Bubbles and crystalsReading:
Ulrich Conrads und Hans G. Sperlich (eds.) The Architecture of Fantasy. Utopian Building and Planning in Modern Times, transl. by Christiane Crasemann Collins and George R. Collins (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), chapter 1 'The Architecture of Fantasy', pp. 8-26
SAT, October 11 symposium
'Where or what is Home?'MON, October 13 Lecture 7:
Off and on the groundReading:
Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, 'Critical Regionalism', in The Critical Landscape, ed. by Michael Speaks (Rotterdam: 010 publishers, 1996), pp. 126-147
WED, October 15 Lecture 8:
Touching the ground lightlyReading:
Norman Crowe, Nature and the Idea of a Man-made World. An Investigation into the Evolutionary Roots of Form and Order in the Built Environment (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1995), chapter 1 'Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World', pp. 4-27
MON, October 20 MID-TERM EXAM WED, October 22 Lecture 9:
Letting nature inReading:
Christine Macy and Sarah Bonnemaison, Architecture and Nature. Creating the American Landscape (London: Routledge, 2002), chapter 4 'Nature Preserved in the Nuclear Age: The Case Study Houses of Los Angeles, 1945', pp. 223-291
CITIES AND NATURE MON, October 27 Lecture 10:
Landscape is architecture
Reading:
Frampton, Kenneth, 'In Search of the Modern Landscape', in Denatured Visions. Landscape and Culture in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Stuart Wrede and William Howard Adams (New York: MoMa, 1991), pp. 42-61
and
Christine Macy and Sarah Bonnemaison, Architecture and Nature. Creating the American Landscape (London: Routledge, 2002), extract from chapter 1 'Exhibiting Wilderness at the Columbian Exposition, 1893', pp. 12-35
WED, October 29 Lecture 11:
Integrating city and environment
Reading:
Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow. An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), chapter 4 'The City in the Garden', pp. 86-135
MON, November 3 NO LECTURE WED, November 5 Lecture 12:
Juxtaposing city and environment
Reading:
Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (London: Secker& Warburg, 1940), chapter V 'The Regional Framework of Civilization', pp. 300-347
MON November 10 NO LECTURE WED, November 12 Lecture 13:
Beyond the cityReading:
Leo Marx, 'The American Ideology of Space', in Denatured Visions. Landscape and Culture in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Stuart Wrede and William Howard Adams (New York: MoMa, 1991), pp. 62-78,
TOWARDS MAN-MADE ENVIRONMENTS MON, November 17 Lecture 14:
Ruins and RenewalReading: John Brinkerhoff Jackson, 'The Necessity for Ruins', in John Brinkerhoff Jackson, The Necessity for Ruins and other Topics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), pp. 89-102
and
Robert Smithson, 'The Monuments of Passaic', Art Forum 6 (1967), number 4, 48-51
WED, November 19 Lecture 15:
Extreme sitesÑartificial environmentsReading:
Iain Boyd Whyte, "The Expressionist Sublime" in Expressionist Utopias. Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy Expressionist Utopias. Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, ed. Timothy O. Benson (Los Angeles: LA County Museum of Art, 1993), pp. 118-137
MON, November 24 Lecture 16:
Sustainable architecture?Reading:
Gissen, David, Big and Green: Toward a Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), David Gissen, 'Introduction', pp. 10-17; David Serlin, 'Rethinking the Corporate Biosphere: The Social Ecology of Sustainable Architecture', pp. 144-153
WED, November 26 Lecture 17:
Architecture and natureÑsynonyms or opposites?Reading:
Betsky, Aaron, Landscrapers. Building with the Land (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), 'Introduction', pp. 5-13; chapter 3 'Unfolding the Land. Opening up the Earth to create Architectural Forms', pp. 97-104 (extract)
MON, December 1 Revision Session MON, December 8 FINAL EXAM