AHI 103 CC: BUILDING CULTURE
Who creates a building? An architect? The patrons and clients? The individuals who use the structure? How can a building represent political ideologies, power, and group identities? How have contemporary cities developed and how are they representations of complex patterns of growth and change? This course seeks to address these questions and many more through an exploration of the history of architecture, culture, society, technology, and the built environment from the fifteenth century to the present. Focusing on European and American examples in a global context, this course questions how architects and builders created a culture of building and how these buildings have shaped culture and society. Students will embark on a chronological journey through architectural history, exploring Brunelleschi's unprecedented design for the dome of Florence Cathedral, the papal revival of Rome, the display of power by the French monarchy, how the British aristocracy created the model for New York's Central Park, Thomas Jefferson's vision for American architecture, and Frank Gehry's revolutionary design for the Guggenheim Bilbao. Both elite monuments and everyday structures will be examined with an interdisciplinary approach, enabling students to explore issues of power and patronage, gendered spaces, vernacular architecture, public space and perception, material culture and domesticity, historic preservation, and architectural education and practice, and to create connections to other fields of study including economics, history, government, psychology, sociology, anthropology and religious studies.
Notes
As a ConnCourse, this course makes connections across the Liberal Arts. Students may not receive credit for this course and AHI 123.
Cross Listed Courses
This is the same course as
ARC 103.
Prerequisite
No previous experience in art history is required.
Enrollment Limit
Enrollment limited to 38 students.
Attributes
A7, MOIE, CC