ARCH 323

This course is the second in the undergraduate two-course sequence (Arch 313/323) surveying the history of architecture from antiquity to the present. This course will provide an introduction to global architecture and urbanism from the 16th century to the present. A major theme will be architectural engagements with such global contexts as imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and modernization. Rather than assuming that these contexts simply pre-exist and shape architecture, the course will pursue the co-constitutive interactions between architecture and its various economic, political, social and cultural surrounds. In exploring these interactions, the course will present architectural history not as an empirically-verifiable record, but as a discursive representation of the past, a mediation of present concerns, and a production of possible futures: a project that can open up new ways of thinking about and practicing architecture.