SPRING 2017 GRADUATE ELECTIVES
ARCH
684_001
–
Spatial
Topologies
of
Globalized
Neoliberal
Urbanization
ARCH
684_002
–
Russian
Avant-Garde
Architectural
Theory
ARCH
684_003
–
Design
Build
ARCH
685
–
Readings
in
Architecture
ARCH
686
–
Competitions
in
Architecture
ARCH
684_001
–
Spatial
Topologies
of
Globalized
Neoliberal
Urbanization
Adrian
Blackwell
DAY/TIME
-
TBD
The introduction of topology (analytic considerations of topoi in the mental and social space) can help us remain focused on the philosophical scope of these conceptions while eliminating any traces of philosophizing, that is,speculative, attitudes.
Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 102.
In this course we will examine the dynamic forms that urbanization produces in diverse global locations. The course brings together architectural and geographical analyses of spatial form, and draws on both architectural and urban theory, to study the urban topologies that form the contemporary capitalist, or neoliberal, city.
Neoliberalism is an ideology of economic and political governance that was cultivated in think tanks starting in the early 20th century by economists interested in reviving a free market system in the aftermath of its collapse in the late 19th Century. Because of its second coming, neoliberalism developed not as an attempt to simply instantiate a free market for all exchanges as liberalism had, but rather as a project to create market-like institutions of governance in all arenas of daily life. Politicians sympathetic to neoliberal economics gained power in diverse global locations in the 1970s, and since then neoliberalism has risen to become the dominant mode of economic governance around the world. This change has in turn produced novel processes and forms of urbanization, in both cities and in rural territories.
In this course we will examine the ways in which neoliberal urbanization, which intensifies the socio-economic polarizations of capitalist development, produces dynamic and uneven urban forms. These new topologies are constructed to create favorable terms of trade for dominant capitalists in market-like transactions. These topologies of inequality form the fundamental background into which any architectural project is inserted and these backgrounds limit architecture’s possibilities. Architectural form is always either an elaboration, or critique of these underlying conditions.
Urban topologies will be explored in both historical and contemporary contexts, using global case studies and scholars, through readings, reading discussions, and lectures and case study presentations. Students will explore these urban topologies themselves in the term project, by studying the sites of their own thesis projects.
ARCH
684_002
–
Russian
Avant-Garde
Architectural
Theory
Elizabeth
English
DAY/TIME
-
TBD
The merging of rational and non-rational modes of thought in the architectural design process is a theme that has long been an important area of speculation among architectural theorists. An investigation into 19th c. Russian mysticalreligious philosophical culture and its manifestations in early 20th c. Russian avant-garde architectural theory yields insights into how the highly synthetic architectural design process may be conceptualized and theorized in ways that are fundamentally distinct from the practices of Western architectural culture. In brief, the Enlightenment had considerably less impact in Russia than in western Europe. As a result, Russian culture did not fully absorb the Cartesian privileging of the rational and devaluing of the non-rational that occurred in the West. The non-rational ways of knowing truth in the world were highly valued by the Russian Slavophile philosophers, by whom they were identified as intuition, creativity and spiritual understanding. The Slavophiles also held an appreciation for the edinstvo (unity, or literally "one-ness") of all aspects of existance, rather than the Cartesian predilection for differentiating, categorizing and separating. Slavophile philosophy therefore is able to provide a conceptual basis for a different approach to the relationship between design and technology: having not suffered the separation experienced in the West, there exists, in this light, no inherent gap between "design thinking" and "technological thinking" to bridge.
One of the major contributions of the Russian architectural avant-garde to Western modern architecture was the incorporation of a particularly abstract form of dynamism, the explicit expression of motion, in architecture. The experiments of the Rationalists were a primary source for this, derived from individual and collective attempts to manifest the mnimosti (“imaginariness") of the space of higher consciousness located in non-Euclidean space, in the fourth dimension of time, and to find ways of expressing, if not incorporating, this space in architecture. These experiments may also be described as seeking in architecture the space of the synthesis of the rational and nonrational modes of thought, the space where the edinstvo of science and spirituality can be made manifest through art. These explorations of the spiritual/mystical content, or mnimosti, embodied in art and architecture were part of a larger quest to harness the invisible energies of dynamism to forge a socially-based higher cosmic unity-of-being on earth. This revolution in art would in turn, they believed, ignite the social and spiritual world transformation they so deeply desired. Instead, their experience was not a revolution in art but of politics, that brought with it not salvation but supression.
It is an explicit intention of the course that each student’s work for the term be an individual exploration of courserelated themes that will in some significant way contribute to her/his thesis research development. Class discussions and projects will be situated within the larger context of exploring relationships among culture, technology and design thinking.
ARCH
684_003
–
Design
Build
Adjunct
Professor
DAY/TIME
–
TBD
A Design Build elective will be offered with an Adjunct Professor, likely with an installation at the Gardiner Museum.
More details will follow once confirmed.
ARCH 685 – Readings in Architecture
Issues to be negotiated on an individual basis with faculty members. An outline of this course, approved by the professor in charge, must be submitted to the Graduate Officer within three weeks of the Winter term.
ARCH
686
–
Competitions
in
Architecture
Terri
Meyer
Boake
This course provides an opportunity for the student to independently engage in the respected tradition of the Architectural Competition. The competition entry and accompanying research paper must focus on the use of architectural precedents as the basis for the creation of typologically based propositions. Submission to the external competition is mandatory, the timing and detailed requirements of which will determine the personalized academic requirements for this course.