Selected Topics in Architecture: Architecture from 1750 to the Present
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Lecture Notes; Written Assignments with Examples
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Fall 2004
- Department: Architecture
| Course Details | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||
| Outcomes | ||||||
|
||||||
| Price & Terms | ||||||
|
||||||
| Technical | ||||||
|
||||||
| Specification | ||||||
|
||||||
Modern architectural history by theme: archaeology, landscape, ornament, gender and the state, with weekly questions and sample student responses.
Modern architecture is treated here as a set of responses to technological, cultural, environmental and theoretical challenges after the European Enlightenment. Taught by theme and not as a chronology, the class asks about archaeology, landscape, ornament, gender and the state. It connects canonical Western work to colonial expansion and slavery, and it closes on the politics of development and global practice.
What You Will Achieve
- Interpret an architectural theme through history and theory
- Compare Benjamin’s and Giedion’s views of iron construction
- Explain the critique of ornament in modernist architecture
- Relate the state and power to built form
Program Overview
Past and Landscape
The first lectures ask how the modern past was made.
- Constructing the past
- Prelude to an architecture of globalization
- Landscape: the politics of site
Industry and Ornament
The next lectures look at technology and aesthetics.
- The ghosts of technology
- Architecture as ornament
- Masses, classes and regions
Body, Play and the State
The later lectures widen the scope of architecture.
- Domesticity: gender in space
- Body as metaphor in architecture
- The architecture of play
- Architecture and the state
Course Completion
Job Outlook
This grounding helps architects, historians and critics, and it supports graduate study of modern architecture.
Good for: Architecture and history students comfortable with theoretical reading who want to rethink the modernist canon.
Keep in mind: The weekly questions are dense and assume readings not listed here, with names such as Foucault and Spillers. Sample student responses help, but readers must find the texts themselves.
Bottom line: A wide reframing of modern architecture, with questions worth working through.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the weekly assignments like?
Three questions per lecture, such as what is and is not ornament, or how the theme park mirrors the city. Selected student responses are published.
Which buildings come up?
They include Soane's house and museum, Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Barcelona Pavilion, Villa Savoye, the Robie House, the Pompidou in Paris and Chandigarh.
Is it taught chronologically?
No. The description says it explores modern architectural history and buildings through thematic exposition, not as a simple chronological succession of ideas.
User Reviews
Write your review
You must be logged in to post a review.
Reviews can only be posted by registered learners. Log in or create a free account, then you will return here to post.
There are no reviews yet.