ART 116 WORLD ARCHITECTURE Fall 2002
Prof. Stanley Mathews
Tu/Th 1:30 – 2:55
Office hours: Tu/Th 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Office phone: 3476 Email: mathews@hws.edu
NOTE: This syllabus is subject to revision. Revisions will be given out in class.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
An introduction to architecture, this course introduces the student to the aims, methods, and issues of the discipline of architecture. This course also encourage students to think, look and read critically about architecture. With these tools, the student will have a basic understanding of architecture, and will be prepared to undertake more specialized architectural study. The first part of the course is devoted to understanding architecture - how to look at it, its methods, materials and how meaning is communicated through architectural form. The second part is a survey of the major historical trends in world architecture. It is imperative that students read assignments prior to class and be prepared to discuss the readings in class. However, not all readings will be discussed directly. Students will be graded on class participation and attendance.
COURSE TEXTS
Required text:
Roth, Leland, Understanding Architecture, Westview Press
Recommended text (optional)
Trachtenberg & Hyman, Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism, Abrams.
ASSIGNMENTS
Specific guidelines for each paper will be given out later. Papers shall be no longer than 3 pages, double-spaced. The writing style of your paper will receive attention along with its content, so be sure that you clearly develop a central theme, and write clearly and concisely. Use proper footnote and bibliographical formats where needed.
I will accept drafts for review and comment as late as one week prior to the due date. While not required, students who take advantage of draft review usually increase the grade on the final draft by one letter grade.
NB: Grades for assignments turned in late will be penalized one full letter grade per day the paper is late.
Assignment 1: How Images Work:
Part One: Visual inventory
Due: Tuesday, September 17
Choose an advertising image from a magazine and describe its visual characteristics.
Format: 2 - 3 pages, double-spaced, typed. Conciseness is a virtue.
Write the paper in a clear, concise, formal expository style. The writing style of your paper will receive attention along with its content.
Take a visual inventory of your advertisement. What are the lines, colors and shapes in the ad, and how are they used? What kind of type face? How is the ad organized as an overall image? Is it symmetrical? Imbalanced? Dynamic? Calm? How did the designer use visual elements in this image?
You are not describing the ad, or the product, or the meaning. You are not interpreting. You are just taking an inventory of what visual elements are present in the image, and how they are used. Specific guidelines will be given out in class.
Part Two: Visual Analysis
Due: Tuesday, October 8.
Take the same image that you used in Part One of this assignment and describe how it visually communicates its message.
Format: 2 - 3 pages, double-spaced, typed. Write the paper in a clear, concise, formal expository style. The writing style of your paper will receive attention along with its content.
Start from the basis of the visual inventory you did in Part One. What does it all mean? Don’t just look at the product, look at what the visual message is. Try to move beyond the immediate message of the image to interpret the way that message is communicated visually.
Example: some ads might use color, line, shape, composition to convey a visual message of excitement, while other ads might convey calm. How did the designer do this, and why? What has it got to do with the product?
Imagine that you are writing this critique to someone who has no knowledge of American culture, and you want this person to understand what the layout artist was up to. Remember that each image is the entire spread, not just the picture in it. Note everything contributing to the whole spread's design; consider such factors as the choice and placement of images, the use of scale and color, and even the style of the typeface. Finally, ask yourself what is important visually in the spread and what are the formal elements (forms and colors) which underscore and contribute to the meaning. Specific guidelines will be given out in class.
Assignment 2: Architectural Analysis:
Due: Tuesday, October 29
Choose a building on the HWS campus or in the town of Geneva.
Format: 2 - 3 pages, double-spaced, typed. Conciseness is a virtue. Write the paper in a clear, concise, formal expository style. The writing style of your paper will receive attention along with its content.
What are the materials, colors, shapes and forms of the building? How is it organized? Is it symmetrical? Imbalanced? Dynamic? Calm? How did the architect use architectural elements in this building?
Draw a basic floor plan of the building.
Specific guidelines will be given out in class.
Assignment 3: Architectural Guide
Due: Tuesday, November 24.
Specific guidelines will be given out later.
Final Project:
Proposals must be submitted by Tuesday, November 12.
Proposals should be specific descriptions of your final project, and include bibliography or any other relevant research sources and materials.
Final Project Due: Last class, Thursday, December 12.
You have several options for the final project. You can also propose final projects, subject to my approval. Choose something realistic. Here are a few ideas:
1. Architectural Historical Analysis.
Choose a building or designed object, and explain how and why it is historically significant. Your chosen topic need not be a "famous masterpiece." You might write on a Classical Greek Temple, or on a Bowling Alley. You can write on furniture, or industrial design. Anything is possible, from Athens to Las Vegas. But, all topics must be approved in advance by the professor (me). (7 to10 pages).
2. Write your Manifesto.
What should architecture do to change the world? (7 to 10 pages)
3. Design something.
A house for someone with Alzheimer's. A tower for a poet. A drive-in funeral home. Again, all topics must be approved in advance by the professor (me). And, it must be original work: you cannot "double-dip" by using a project from some other class for this one.
4. Design and Build something.
A chair or a table. Make a short film. Build a tensegrity structure, a geodesic dome, or a working Hoberman dome. Make a demonstration model of some architectural or structural principle that can be used in this class in the future.
Exams:
There will not be a midterm exam.
There will be a final exam.
ATTENDANCE:
There will be a sign in sheet. You are allowed two absences during this course. Additional absences will be deducted from your class participation grade.
GRADING
Class participation and attendance 10%
Assignment #1: Visual Analysis 15%
Assignment #2: Architectural analysis 15%
Assignment #3: Architectural guide 15%
Final Exam 25%
Final Project 20%
CLASS MEETINGS
PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING THE VISUAL ENVIRONMENT.
1. Tue 9/3 Introductory class.
What is architecture, and how do we see?
Reading: Roth, Introduction & Chapter 1.
2. Thu 9/5 Architecture and Representation
Reading: Roth, Chapter 4.
3. Tue 9/10 The visual environment
Reading, Roth, Chapter 3 and 5.
4. Thu 9/12 Architectural techniques and materials
Basic building systems - the syntax of assembly
Reading: Roth, Chapter 2.
5. Tue 9/17 Architecture and environment
Reading: Roth, Chapter 7.
Paper #1, Part One due in class.
6. Thu 9/19 Style, Symbol and Meaning
Reading: Roth, Chapter 6 and 8
7. Tue 9/24 Field Trip : How to look at architecture.
PART TWO - HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF ARCHITECTURE
8. Thu 9/26 Prehistory
Reading: Roth, Chapter 9
Suggested reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 1.
9. Tue 10/1 The Ancient World
Egypt - power and permanence
Reading: Roth, Chapter 10.
10. Thu 10/3 The Ancient World
Greece - the classical ideal
Reading: Roth, Chapter 11.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 2.
11. Tue 10/8 The Ancient World
Rome.
Reading: Roth, Chapter 12.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 3.
Paper #1, Part Two, due in class.
12. Thu 10/10 The Age of Faith
Byzantine and Romanesque architecture
Reading: Roth, Chapters 13 and 14.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapters 4 and 5.
FALL BREAK
13. Thu 10/17 The Age of Faith
Gothic architecture
Reading, Roth, Chapter 15.
Suggested reading: Trachtenberg, chapter 7
14. Tue 10/22 World Architecture
Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 6
15. Thu 10/24 World Architecture
Friday, October 25 - TRIP TO FALLINGWATER
16. Tue 10/29 The Renaissance
Humanism and the lure of Classical Antiquity
Reading: Roth, Chapter 16.
Assignment #2 due in class.
17. Thu 10/31 The Renaissance
The perfection of form.
Bramante, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo,
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 8.
18. Tue 11/5 The Baroque era
Theater as metaphor
Reading: Roth, Chapter 17
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 9.
19. Thu 11/7 Neoclassical Architecture
Reading: Roth, Chapter 18.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 10.
20. Tue 11/12 American Architecture
Suggested Reading: Roth, A Concise History of American Architecture, Chapter 2.
Final Project proposals due
21. Thu 11/14 Architecture in the 19th Century
Architecture and Morality
Reading: Roth, Chapter 19.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 11.
22. Tue 11/19 Architecture in the 19th Century
American Architecture and the skyscraper.
Suggested Reading: Roth, A Concise History of American Architecture, Chapter 5.
23. Thu 11/21 Architecture in the 19th Century
Art Nouveau -
24. Tue 11/24 20th Century architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright
Assignment #3 due in class
25. Tue 12/3 20th Century Architecture
The Emerging Avant-Garde
THANKSGIVING BREAK
26. Thu 12/5 20th Century Architecture
Towards a machine aesthetic
Reading: Roth, Chapter 20.
27. Tue 12/10 20th Century Architecture
Technological Utopia
-Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, The Metabolists and High Tech.
28. Thu 12/12 20th Century Architecture
Postmodern reaction, Architecture as Critical Practice
Reading, Roth, Chapter 21.
Suggested Reading: Trachtenberg, Chapter 13.
Final Projects due.