ARCH 773, METAMORPHOSIS

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will investigate architecture and landscape architecture as the transformation of the existing character of the site, the program, and the architect. The development of building, landscape, and city form will be examined through the study of the determinants and morphological strategies of modification and change. These strategies include the use of existing buildings for new purposes; the extension, deformation, or subtraction of forms; and the infill and addition of form that responds to the existing fabric through its opposition. The course will provide a means of examining the creation of the built environment through an understanding of the processes and strategies which effect its change. To inform our study, we will examine metamorphosis in mythology, literature, biology, and cultural anthropology. We will ground this investigation through the interpretive study of the building process and architecture of pre-historic Southwest America, Renaissance Rome and Turin, the contemporary work of Louis Kahn, Carlo Scarpa, Alvaro Siza and Renzo Piano, as well as many others. In addition to seminar and lecture readings, students will be required to investigate an aspect of metamorphosis in architecture or landscape through an interpretive study of their own design, developed in consultation with the professor, and presented to the class.