ARCH/urbanHISTORY/theory Fall 2011

SUPERSTUDIO, Continous Monument

“If, roughly from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, a coded language may be said to have existed on the practical basis of a specific relationship between town, country, and political territory, a language founded on classical perspective and Euclidean space, why and how did this coded system collapse? Should an attempt be made to reconstruct that language, which was common to the various groups making up the society—to users and inhabitants, to the authorities and to the technicians (architects, urbanists, planners)?”

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1974 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1991) 17.

This critical survey on architecture and urban theory from the 15th to the 19th centuries will concern itself with the question of the evolution and eventual devolution of the Western architectural canon. This course will investigate the making of the urban master-narrative in relationship to 20th century modern architecture and urban theories.

In the case of this particular subject and timeline, the master-narrative can be substituted for the master-plan. The building up of this history, the instrumentalizaton of various aspects of Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque and Enlightenment architectural and urban histories have served to institutionalize over the course of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries a scientific urban practice. The crises effecting architecture and urbanism in the post-WWII era were part of a much broader series of deep interrogations into the legitimacy of the meta-narrative effecting philosophy, the arts, and ultimately the sciences. We intend to examine how the emergence of the master-narrative—predicated on a series of highly exclusive canonic events, becomes further structured and authoritative.

Over the longer duration, however, such structures have proven to be increasingly problematic and marginal when considering the much more complex environments that make up today’s global society. The post-war (WWII) crisis in modernism and the rising supremacy of Post-Modern thought, finally punctuated by the shock of the revolutions of 1989 (see Francis Fukuyama’s end of history thesis, in End of History and the Last Man, New York, Simon&Schuster 1992. *) and subsequent aftershocks, with an endless number of crises, political, economic, social and environmental, have precipitated numerous rational and irrational counter-tendencies.

Today architects and urban designers are engaged in a dialectical debate over strategies and tactics that might either loosely guide—or tightly control the future of our great cities. This course is structured on a set of overlapping studies: an examination of the history of architecture and cities and their consequent critical interpretations that include recent theoretical developments and a weekly survey of different aspects of urban cultural production- from dance to rap, from theater to street art, from the printing press to internet as a means of gauging the city’s position within the transformation of public life and public space.

“The environment should be perceived as meaningful, its visible parts not only related to each other in time and space but related to other aspects of life: functional activity, social structure, economic and political patterns, human values and aspirations, even individual idiosyncrasies and character.

The environment is an enormous communications device…”

Kevin Lynch, Site Planning, Second Edition.

(Cambridge, MIT Press, 1971) 226.

Students will be required to develop a series of semester-long assignments and give class presentations on these assignments. Each student is asked to keep an updated web-blog linked to the class Tumblr site:

http://archurbanhistorytheoryiii.tumblr.com/

RESEARCH CITY: East student at the beginning of the semester is asked to choose a city that experienced significant demonstrations, protests, assemblies or frequent mobbing (for this project cities already covered in previous classes are still eligible) and develop a semester long project that investigates the urban context’s multiple characteristics and physical dimensions (with an emphasis on distinguishing traditional histories from more recent events). Final presentations will be set to a specific template (See below) and consist of original diagrams, maps, charts, and axonometric drawings. A 2000 word text should accompany the presentation. (50%grade)
ON LINE BLOG: Students are invited to create and continuously update their Blog site on their topic’s research (statistics, topography, politics and economics, but also cultural and visual documents) The assembly of information on your selected city will assist you and others in the class and also invited outside observers to review and comment on your ongoing research. (35%grade)
3. RECENT EVIDENCE OF NEW CULTURAL PRODUCTION: The student will be invited to present in class a geography of resistance intrinsically linked to the city they have chosen to study. (15%grade)

*Francis Fukuyama “End of History” for online text see:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NdFpQwKfX2IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=fukuyama+end+of+history&source=bl&ots=LzSSZlD1Yz&sig=eerFXiKIY9YsBPot5mE7uGedBKg&hl=en&ei=1xgqTYaXI4SglAfotNT0AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false

CLASS TEXTBOOK:

David Grahame Shane, Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design and City Theory, London, Academy Press, 2005.

Philosophy and the Matrix – Baudrillard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3tr0gSNBx4

WEEK 2:

Monday September 5: BLOB: Student PRESENT THEIR CITIES IN CLASS

Wednesday September 7: TALK:

BE PREPARED TO DISCUSS: PORTRAYING THE CITY, CINE 1: from Ruttmannʼs Berlin Symphony to Reggioʼs Koyaanisqatsi.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City Walter Ruttmann, director, 1927.

Metropolis, Fritz Lang, director, 1927.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5keBI_wk4g&feature=channel

Mumford “The City” 1939 (excerpts)

on the making of Lewis Mumfordʼs “The City:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDmRTiPc-Y

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. Godfrey Reggio, 1982.

(opening)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrQMB_xcDSE&NR=1

WEEK 3

MONDAY September 12. BLOB: (UTOPIAS, ENCLAVES, HETEROTOPIAS) reading: George Orwell, Animal Farm. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451,

Yellow Submarine, George Dunning (with the Beatles) 1968

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3383035161/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7F2X3rSSCU&feature=related

Zardoz, John Boorman with Sean Connery 1974

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOZs1w9sQE&feature=watch_response

Brazil, Terry Gilliam 1985

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wh2b1eZFUM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqtUI4XfhMM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcKlDMYnmug

Waterworld, Kevin Reynolds, director, Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, 1995

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oID8q6tdGfk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnMNfceY6mo&feature=related (at Universal Studios Hollywood)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46lSslZe6Pk

WEDNESDAY September 14, TALK Recombinant Urbanism: “City Theory and City Design” 1.4- 1.4.6

Routes, Communications, Networks: from Silk Road to InfoBahn

BE PREPARED TO DISCUSS:

Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II translated from the French by Siân Reynolds see “Role of the Environment”

http://books.google.com/books?id=yAMe0bu3Jt4C&printsec=frontcover&cd=1&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=one page&q&f=false

The Silk Road: Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: a history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age …

http://books.google.com/books?id=5jG1eHe3y4EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=silk+road&hl=en&ei=BoAdTIjH

FoKKlwf3ydXwDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false

Julie Hill, The Silk Road Revisited: Markets, Merchants and Minarets

http://books.google.com/books?id=zsYdMhR0fJsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=silk+road&hl=en&ei=4oEdTL_3

OoWBlAeDpcCRDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q&f=false

Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Message: An inventory of Effects, Gingko Press, 2001, see http://marshallmcluhan.com/

Manuel Castells’s The Rise of the Network Society London, Wiley1996

FRIDAY September 16: SPECIAL EXTRA CLASS: TBA

WEEK 4

MONDAY September 19 LECTURE: Tom De Blasis, The Game Changer. NIKE Global Design Director (Attendance Obligatory)

WEDNESDAY September 21 LECTURE: Larry Sass (Attendance Obligatory)

WEEK 5.

MONDAY September 26: BLOB DANCE/MUSIC:

BE PREPARED TO DISCUSS: Classic concert, Pop, Disco, Punk, Rap and Techno,

Singing in the Rain, (Gene Kelly) 1952

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ

West Side Story, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961 (Music by Leonard Bernstein)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8R9GiLImSw

Saturday Night Fever, John Badham, with John Travolta, 1977

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvQ8sUbgA2c

TURF FEINZ “RIP RichD” YAK FILMS DANCING in the RAIN DANSE

Dancers are No Noize (red jacket), Man (back jacket), BJ (striped shirt), Dreal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRRnAhmB58

http://www.youtube.com/THETURFFEINZ

WEDNESDAY September 28, TALK Town and Country Recombinant Urbanism: “What is Urban Design?” 2.1- 2.1.2

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.

http://books.google.com/books?id=exNPAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+social+contract+jean+jacques+rousseau&source=bl&ots=7vHUSkgG0&sig=4rKPeZ4tz2en0J_G6vqATpC05b8&hl=en&ei=300rTYyOOIOclge4KDAAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Jacob Riis, How the other Half Lives, 1890

http://books.google.com/books?id=zhcv_oA5dwgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=how+the+other+half+lives&hl=en&ei=uO8cTJHYLoGClAfB4tHeDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

WEEK 11:

MONDAY November 21, BLOB The Avant-Garde 2. The Sixties to now: Minimalism, Pop, etc. Reading: Jack Kerouac, On the Road. Conceptual Art, Land Art, New Media, Post-Human, Global Art, Graffiti Art, Street Art.

Andy Warhol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRxvUneWcdQ

Dan Graham

http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/RockMyReligion.html

Cindy Sherman

http://www.cindysherman.com/

http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/Doll%20Clothes.html

Jeff Koons

http://www.jeffkoons.com/

Diller, Scofidio + Renfro

http://www.dsrny.com/

WEDNESDAY November 23 TALK: Recombinant Urbanism: 4.1: A Preliminary Definition of the Heterotopia, Recombinant Urbanism: 4.3, Rhizomic Assemblage and Heterotopias of Illusion. Workbund, Bauhaus, Ulm, US: Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Contemporary: Global Tools, Fabrica

Cedric Price, author, Hans Ulrich Obrist ed., Re:CP, Birkhauser, 1999.

Peter Cook, Archigram, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

Peter Lang, William Menking, Superstudio, Life Without Objects, Milan, Skira, 2003,

Simon Sadler, Archigram, Architecture without Architecture, Cambridge, MIT press, 2005

Hadas A Steiner, Beyond Archigram, The Structure of Circulation, London, Routledge, 2009

FURTHER READINGS: Bentham, the Panopticon, Insane Asylum,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, New York, Vintage, 1988

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York, Vintage, 1995