History and Theory of Architecture II
SYLLABUS
CONTENT
This course traces the history of Architecture from the 15th Century to the late 19th Century. The various theories and formal languages (styles) that shaped the history of Architecture within the specified time span will be explored by closely examining a select group of buildings and the specific cultural, social, political, and economic contexts of their design and construction. Our coverage will encompass the architectural achievements of the cultures of Europe, the Middle East, South, Southeast, and East Asia, the Americas, and Africa.
OBJECTIVE
Treating the history of architecture as a history, not of buildings per se but of cultural beliefs and ideas, values, and aesthetic ideals actualized through architectural forms and experiences, this course seeks to foster your ability to analyze and understand the unique formal vocabulary of architecture and its expressive potential, as well as the complex and instrumental dialogue between architecture and culture.
NAAB PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
PC.4 History and Theory—How the program ensures that students understand the histories and theories of architecture and urbanism, framed by diverse social, cultural, economic, and political forces, nationally and globally.
PC.8 Social Equity and Inclusion—How the program furthers and deepens students' understanding of diverse cultural and social contexts and helps them translate that understanding into built environments that equitably support and include people of different backgrounds, resources, and abilities.
FORMAT
This course will meet twice weekly on Monday and Thursday from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM for lectures, presentations, and discussion sessions. Please note that electronic devices such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops are not allowed during class.
READING
The required text for this course, available through the campus bookstore, is:
Richard Ingersoll
World Architecture: A Cross Cultural History - second edition
Oxford University Press, 2019
The textbook has an associated website that offers extensive, valuable resources. You must register to access the material.
The site address is https://learninglink.oup.com/access/ingersoll2e
The reading assignments for each week are listed in the Lecture Outline.
The lectures and the reading assignments do not necessarily cover the same material or follow the same presentation sequence. Instead, they are intended to complement each other, provide different perspectives on each subject, and help the students develop a critical approach to studying architecture and its history.
Please ensure you do not fall behind in completing your weekly reading assignments. Given the complexity and scope of the material covered, you will not be able to comprehend and effectively answer the exam questions if you do not complete your weekly assignments on time.
In addition to the required text for this course, you may wish to consult and review any of the following similar texts:
Francis D. K. Ching, Mark M. Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakash
A Global History of Architecture
John Wiley & Sons, 2010
Marian Moffett, Lawrence Wodehouse, Michael Fazio
A World History of Architecture
McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008
Leland M. Roth
Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, And Meaning
Westview Press, 2nd edition, 2006
Marvin Trachtenberg & Isabelle Hyman
Architecture - from Prehistory to Post-Modernism
Second Edition, New York: Pearson, 2002
Dan Cruickshank (Editor)
Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture
Architectural Press, 1996
Spiro Kostof, Gregory Castillo, Richard Tobias
A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals
Oxford University Press, 1995
You may substitute any of these texts for the required text at your own risk.
REQUIREMENTS
Your performance is evaluated based on the command of course material and the assigned readings, as evidenced by effective synthesis of course material and completion of three in-class exams. After completing your exam, you must log in and enter your answers online at Canvas before leaving. The exams are scheduled for the following dates:
Exam 1: Monday, September 30, 2024
Exam 2: Monday, November 4, 2024
Exam 3: Monday, December 9, 2024
Your success in this class depends on constant and effective engagement with the course material. To this end, you must complete the assigned readings before each class. You are also required to write a one to two-page synopsis of the material covered in the lectures for each week. These will be of great assistance to you in answering the exam questions. Please carefully read the detailed explanation of the exam requirements and the weekly assignments at the end of this syllabus.
You must submit your weekly assignments on Canvas each Monday before class in Word or PDF format. Please label your file using your name, e.g., JaneDoe.doc or .pdf.
All submitted assignments will be available on Canvas for everyone in class to review. You are urged to review all submissions every week.
All due dates should be strictly observed. In fairness to all, exceptions will only be made due to medical or personal emergencies.
Each missed or incomplete assignment will lead to a 10% reduction in the final weekly assignment grade.
Submitting an AI-generated essay as one’s own is plagiarism. It is subject to all University policies on plagiarism and can lead to dismissal from the university, in addition to a failing grade for the course..
Exams one and two and the cumulative weekly assignments grade will each count for 22% of the course's final grade, and the third exam will count for 34% of the final grade.
EXTRA CREDIT
At your discretion, you may take an extra credit exam covering the course content from the first and the second exams. This voluntary exam should be helpful to anyone who may not have done as well as hoped in the first two exams. The extra credit exam will be given on:
Thursday, December 12, 2024
If you choose to take this extra credit exam, your final grade will be based on four exams and the weekly assignment grade (exams one, two, extra credit, and the weekly assignments: 18% each; the third exam: 28%).
ATTENDANCE
You are required to attend every class and actively participate in class discussions. Absences will be excused by prior or timely notice due to family emergencies, medical conditions, and established religious holidays. An unexcused absence will equate to a missed/incomplete assignment for that week.
ONLINE
You can access this syllabus online at Canvas or directly at Arch 5240.
Individual dates in the Lecture Outline of the online syllabus will be linked to a video of the visual material presented in class on that date.
You can download a list of buildings covered in Lectures here: Building List.
CONTACT
Please email me at amir.ameri@ucdenver.edu with any questions or concerns or to schedule a mutually convenient time to meet. I will also be available to answer any questions you may have after each class. My office is in the CU Building, room 515.
UNIVERSITY-WIDE POLICIES
Please review the following university-wide policies:
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
Discrimination and Harassment Policy and Procedures
LECTURE OUTLINE PDF Files
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Lecture Topic
Tentative Date
Reading Assignment
____________________________________
1350 - 1500
____________________________________
The Architecture of the Renaissance and the Americas
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.374-428
____________________________________
1500 - 1600
____________________________________
The Architectures of the Ming and the Ottoman Empires
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.429-456
____________________________________
The Architecture of the High Renaissance and Mannerism
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.457-483
____________________________________
1600 - 1750
____________________________________
The Baroque Architecture
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.505-528, 542-556, 561-575
___________________________________
September 30 First Exam
____________________________________
The Architecture of Iran, India, and Japan
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.484-504, 529-541
____________________________________
The Architecture of the American Colonies
October 14
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.576-592
____________________________________
1750 - 1800
____________________________________
The Architecture of the Enlightenment
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.556-560, 593-638
____________________________________
November 4 Second Exam
____________________________________
1800- 1850
____________________________________
Eclecticism and Revivalism
October 31 - November 7 - 11 - 14
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp.639-685
____________________________________
November 25 - December 1 Fall Break
____________________________________
1850 - 1890
____________________________________
Historicism and Imperialism
November 18 - 21, December 2 - 5
Ingersoll-World Architecture: pp. 686-739
____________________________________
December 9 Third Exam
____________________________________
December 12 Extra Credit Exam
____________________________________
Exams
Chartres is made of stone and glass. But it is not just stone and glass; it is a cathedral, and not only a cathedral, but a particular cathedral built at a particular time by certain members of a particular society. To understand what it means and perceive it for what it is, you need to know more than the generic properties of stone and glass and more than what is common to all cathedrals. You need to understand also - and, in my opinion, most critically - the specific concepts of the relations among God, man, and architecture that, since they have governed its creation, it consequently embodies. (Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Harper, New York, 1973)
To every work of architecture, there is a what, and there is a why. The what pertains to its tangible characteristics. The why pertains to the intangible reasons, ideas, beliefs, and ideals that condition every work of architecture and transform it into a cultural artifact.
Every work of architecture is essentially a composition, i.e., it comprises distinct parts placed in a particular relationship to each other for a particular purpose. Understanding a work of architecture requires, first and foremost, an analysis of the work. It entails separating and identifying its constituent parts and their specific relationship to each other and the whole work, e.g., the particular relationship between solids and voids, horizontals and verticals, of the inside to the outside, of structure to skin, of the building to its site, ornamentation, articulation, and so on. This is, however, merely a first step. The more important step in understanding a work of architecture is the why of the work.
From a certain vantage point, architecture is an impossible task. Faced with multiple possibilities, the architect has no ground for delimitating her/his/their options. The functions of an edifice suggest no one form and much less a direction. In deference to biological needs, function is nebulous and multi-directional. However, function assumes a trajectory and becomes highly prescriptive when it is appropriated by culture and transformed into a ritual. Though by no means singular, a ritual is distinct and unidirectional. It has unique spatial requirements. It demands a specific setting. It is this and similar prescriptive cultural appropriations that make architecture possible.
Every work of architecture points to a process of delimitation intended to give expression to a particular cultural proposition, theorem, or thesis. As such, every work of architecture transforms a culture’s assumptions about the world into a factual experience of them. The work shapes the world, in other words, after our image of it. Economy, ecology, and technology play an important role in this process. They make the realization of certain dreams possible and others not. The shape any work of architecture takes is invariably conditioned by the interaction of these three forces within the broader cultural context.
Therefore, to understand the why of any work of architecture, one must understand the cultural rituals it is meant to provide for, the cultural experiences it is meant to instigate, and the ideas, ideals, and beliefs it is intended to embody and express.
Throughout the term, we will address both the what and the why of every work of architecture we examine. Lectures will specifically emphasize the why. Your aim throughout the term should be to understand architecture in the sense explained above. In this vein, the point and purpose of the three required exams for this course are not to test your command of the facts, names, dates, and places, per se. Although you are expected to command the facts fully, the exams are intended to test your understanding of architecture. Mere and passive acquisition and repetition of information are not at issue. The exams are meant to test your active engagement with and the ability to comprehend and effectively synthesize diverse bodies of information and points of view provided in the lectures and reading assignments. They are meant to foster your ability to effectively analyze and hierarchically organize this information into a coherent and multi-layered picture encompassing both the what and the why of architecture.
For each exam, you will be presented with multiple questions and asked to ascertain their accuracy.
You will complete each exam in class on the following dates:
Exam 1: Monday, September 30, 2024
Exam 2: Monday, November 4, 2024
Exam 3: Monday, December 9, 2024
All due dates should be strictly observed. In fairness to all, exceptions will only be made due to medical or personal emergencies.
Exams one and two and the cumulative weekly assignments grade will each count for 22% of the course's final grade, and the third exam will count for 34% of the final grade.
Your success in this class depends on constant and effective engagement with the course material.
Exam Grade
If your exam score is 93 or higher, you will receive an A for the exam. You will receive an A- if your exam score is 89 to 92. If your exam score is 85 to 88, you will receive a B+. If your exam score is 81 to 84, you will receive a B for the exam. You will receive a B- if your exam score is 78 to 80. If your exam score is 75 to 77, you will receive a C+. If your exam score is 71 to 74, you will receive a C for the exam. You will receive a C- if your exam score is 68 to 70. If your exam score is 65 to 67, you will receive a D+. If your exam score is 61 to 64, you will receive a D for the exam. You will receive a D- if your exam score is 58 to 60. If your exam score is less than 58, you will receive an F for the exam.
Weekly Assignments PDF files
Your success in this course depends on constant and effective engagement with the course material. To this end, you must complete the assigned readings before each class. You are also required to write a one to two-page synopsis of the material covered in the lectures for each week. These will help you prepare for each exam.
For your weekly assignments, please focus on the lecture content and the above-referenced why of the architecture discussed in the lectures. You do not need to address every building presented or reiterate the place, date, or related factual information about any building. You should not quote or reference the reading assignments or any external sources. The synopsis should be entirely in your own words.
Please choose two or more exemplary buildings from the week’s lectures and discuss their significance and contribution to the architecture of their epoch. Broadly and in no particular order:
To what do these buildings owe their unique characteristics?
What were the ideas and theories behind these buildings?
What were the cultural beliefs and rituals these buildings embodied?
In what ways did these buildings shape and/or advance the architecture of their epoch?
You must submit your weekly assignments on Canvas each Monday before class in Word or PDF format. Please label your file using your name, e.g., JaneDoe.doc or .pdf.
All submitted assignments will be available on Canvas for everyone in class to review. You are urged to review all submissions every week.
All due dates should be strictly observed. In fairness to all, exceptions will only be made due to medical or personal emergencies.
Each missed or incomplete assignment will lead to a 10% reduction in the final tallied weekly assignment grade.
Before submitting your weekly assignment, please have your paper proofread by Grammarly. It is a free online service at https://www.grammarly.com.
The weekly assignments will be marked as complete or incomplete, depending on the rigor and thoroughness of the synopsis.
Submitting an AI-generated essay as one’s own is plagiarism. It is subject to all University policies on plagiarism and can lead to dismissal from the university, in addition to a failing grade for the course.
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