ARTH 201B
AUIA Summer Program
Introduction to the History of Architecture
SYLLABUS
Instructor: Dr. Sean Anderson
Home institution: Montana State University School of Architecture
Email: sean.anderson3@montana.edu
Office Hour: TBA
Teaching Assistant: TBA
Course Description:
History plays a peculiar, and essential, role in our world. On one hand, it can be seen as a
temporal map of all that has been, and that which has brought us to our present moment. It
is an ongoing series of data collection and distribution that tells the story of our place in the
world. It is selective and descriptive, preserving our memory of places, people and events
as they were. This offers us a certain awareness of how time has unfolded before us and
how we might proceed based on this understanding. Yet if we simply study history as
frozen moments or ideas along a static timeline, we frame it as something to be “consumed
and forgotten” as Eisenman states above. History is not frozen. It is ceaselessly being
retold, reformulated and reconsidered as time passes. History is alive in those who engage
with it. The myriad questions of why things are the way they are lead only to myriad
answers which, in turn, results in even more questions and subsequent interpretations. As
Siegfried Giedion so aptly states, history is a process, and you are a part of that process.
This course will follow architectural history chronologically, from the dawn of recorded time
through to the early landmarks of Modernity, by continually attempting to re-assess and
interrogate it thematically and globally. We will explore these various historical moments
through critical reflection and discussion. We will consider how the history of this
architecture unfolded and why, how it is written, by whom, and why interpretation is
essential to our understanding of it. We will embrace various types of media to supplement
the texts we read, however acknowledging that the text is the definitive academic source of
the material we cover. Thus, there is no substitution for your direct engagement with the
text. Reading the course material is your core commitment to this course, and you will be
challenged to re-activate this material, to bring it to life in your mind through your own
critical interpretation of how and why architecture developed the way it did during this
period and how it still influences us today.
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ARTH 201B
Required Textbooks:
Trachtenberg, M., and Hyman, I. (2003). Architecture, From Prehistory to Postmodernity,
2nd Edition. Prentice Hall Publishers: New Jersey. (Approximately pp.277-506).
Jarzombek, M., Prakash, V., and Ching. F. (2010). A Global History of Architecture, 2nd
Edition. Wiley Publishers: New Jersey. (This text will be available in sections.)
Recommended Course Texts (*Chapters from the following texts will be distributed to the
class)
Giedion, S. (1952). Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition.
Harvard University Press: 1952.
Hamlin, T. (1953). Architecture through the Ages. GP Putnam’s Sons: New York.
Heidegger, M. (1977). “The Age of the World Picture.” In, The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays.
Translated by William Lovitt, Harper & Row: New
York.
Kaufmann, E. (1955). Architecture in the Age of Reason: Baroque and Post-Baroque in
England, Italy, and France. Dover Publications: New York.
Le Corbusier. (1986). Towards a New Architecture. Dover: New York.
Loos, A. (2003). “Ornament and Crime.” In Adolf Loos 1870-1933: Architect, Cultural Critic,
Dandy. Author, Sarnitz, A. Taschen: Boston.
Moffett, M., Fazio, M. and Wodehouse, L. (2004). A World History of Architecture. McGraw
Hill: London.
Palladio, A. (1965). The Four Books of Architecture. Dover: New York.
Roth, L. (2007). Understanding Architecture, Its Elements, History and Meaning.
Westview Press.
Snodgrass, A., and Coyne, R. (2006). Interpretation in Architecture: Design as a Way
of Thinking. Routledge:
New York.
Vidler, A. (2008). Histories of the Immediate Present. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.
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ARTH 201B
Vitruvius. (1960). The Ten Books of Architecture. Dover Publications: New York.
Whyte, I. B. (1993). “The Expressionist Sublime.” In Expressionist Utopias: Paradise,
Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy. Ed. Benson, T. University of California Press:
Berkeley.
Grading & Evaluation:
Participation
Following each lecture, students will discuss and ask questions regarding the themes
and ideas presented in the class. On some days, the class will divide into groups to
make a presentation for the rest of the class on a given topic. Each student is expected
to come to class with questions and ideas that can broaden the scope of the course
materials. Failure to actively engage with the materials and class will result in a lower
participation grade.
Reading-Site Responses
You have four written assignments based on readings from the textbook/readings as
well as supplemental observations outside the classroom that parallel the lectures for
which you will be asked to submit a brief Reading / Site Response. All of the responses
will include an analytical response to a question or theme that may include both written
and graphic materials.
Each week, the class will meet outside of the classroom to conduct a walking tour of
significant monuments, sites of historical and cultural significance as well as
contemporary works of architecture in Taipei.
In each case, you are asked to: Fully identify (name of the building, name of the
architect if known, culture, location, and date) and/or reflect upon key works of art
referred to in the reading or lectures. The responses should be brief, about 1-1.5
pages.
You may include sketches and/or images with your written reading response They are
due at the beginning of class on the assigned dates (see course schedule) Late papers
lose half credit.
Quizzes
There will be three (3) unscheduled quizzes based on the readings/lectures.
Mid-Term and Final Exams
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ARTH 201B
There will be a mid-term and a final exam. They will consist of slide identifications and
formal comparisons of known works of art and architecture in addition to multiple
question types to assess your knowledge of the materials presented during lectures.
The works and terms you are expected to know are listed on the handout for each
lecture.
GRADING SYSTEM
Class Participation [Discussions/Debates]
4 Reading/Site Responses
3 Quizzes based on lectures/readings
Midterm Examination
Comprehensive Final Examination
05%
20%
15%
25%
35%
Course Schedule:
The lectures are formal slide-illustrated surveys of a given theme that introduces
students to the general historical and cultural context and to key architectural
monuments of any given period. In general, the goal of each lecture is to demonstrate
a theme or period’s breadth and to acquaint students with important concepts and
ideas as expressed in the period’s architecture and design.
Lectures are intended to stimulate debate about each period, but students are asked to
hold questions that arise for discussion until the end of class or in consultation with the
professor.
Further, we will meet each week outside of the classroom to conduct on-site
observations and analysis of significant works of architecture and design in Taipei.
Weekly site visits and city walks will be determined and arranged according to
students’ schedules.
Week 1
July M
Introduction
02
First Class
Course
W
04
First Societies
Cities, Gods, and Empires
Karnak and Ancient Egypt
Greeks and Etruscans
GH
GH
GH
GH
pp.25-51
pp.55-80
pp.98-112
pp.113-42
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ARTH 201B
F
06
Buddhism: In and Out of Asia
Persia and the Sassanians
India: Fire, Water and Chariots
GH pp.214-18
GH pp.229-34
GH pp.143-44;
Architectures of Islam
GH pp.301-24
176-82
Site Response I Due
Week 2
M
09
The Roman Empire
GH pp.154-209
W
11
Byzantines and Ottomans
Han Dynasty China
TH pp.160-83
GH pp.151-53;
Dunhuang and the Silk Route
Chang’an
T’ang Dynasty: City and Palace
Shinto: Landscape and Religion
Song Dynasty
GH
GH
GH
GH
GH
The Gothic
The Renaissance
TH pp.222-73
TH pp.277-317
219-21
F
13
pp.238-41
pp.284-86
pp.293-300
pp.287-92
pp.356-61
Site Response II Due
Week 3
M
16
Midterm Examination
W
18
The Baroque and Rococo
TH pp.327-41;
The Garden and Landscape
TH pp.348-55
17th / 18th Century Eclecticism
TH pp.366-80;
357-66
F
20
393-413
TH pp.345-48;
380-81
Site Response III Due
Week 4
M
23
19th Century Precedents
TH
Technology and the Eclectic
TH
Early Modernism: Chicago School TH
Vienna Secession
TH
Art Nouveau
TH
pp.415-43
pp.443-47
pp.473-84
pp.491-93
pp.485-91
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ARTH 201B
W
25
Modernism: Futurism
Constructivism
The Bauhaus
De Stijl
TH pp.493-507
F
27
Theories of the Modern
Erich Mendelsohn
Peter Behrens
Le Corbusier
Mies van der Rohe
Frank Lloyd Wright
TH pp.508-517
Site Response IV Due
Week 5
M
August
F
30
W
03
Outside Modernism
Japanese Precepts
Africa
South America
Taiwan
01
Global Technologies
TBD
TBD
FINAL EXAMINATION
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