SYLLABUS

Week 1 - Introduction 

Sept. 4  

Reading: Vittorio Gregotti, "Modification" 

Week 2 - Metamorphosis: Myth, Magic and Metaphor 

Sept. 11, Material and Light  

Readings:  

Ovid, Metamorphosis - selected readings: (Arachne, Actaeon, Phaethon, Daphne, Danae) 

Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis 

Louis Kahn, "Architecture: Silence and Light" 

Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor - selected readings 

Sverre Fehn, "Has a Doll Life?" 

 

Additional Readings:  

David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic". 

 

Week 3 - The Physical World: Geological Time and Evolutionary Biology 

Sept. 18, Time's Arrow/ Time's Cycle, Chaos and Feedback  

Readings:  

Stephen Gould, Time's Arrow Time's Cycle - selected readings 

Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection - selected readings 

Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity -- selected readings 

 

Additional Readings:  

Coveney and Highfield, The Arrow of Time - selected readings 

 

Week 4 Cultural Anthropology 

Sept. 25, Settlement Patterns  

Readings:  

Vittorio Gregotti, "Territory and Architecture" 

Joseph Rykwert, "Learning from the Street" 

Sverre Fehn, "The Primitive Architecture of Morocco" 

Douglas Fraser, Village Planning in the Primitive World. 

Ivan Illich, H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness. 

 

Additional Readings:  

Suzanne Blier, The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression - selected readings. 

Christopher Tilley, Metaphor and Material Culture - selected reading

Week 5 - Project Conditions: The Site 

Oct. 2 Climate, Place and Measure  

Readings:  

Kenneth Frampton, "Towards a Critical Regionalism" 

Watsuji Tetsuro, A Climate 

Kenneth Hewitt, "The meaning and loss of place in war" 

J.B. Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape - selected readings David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering, selected readings 

 

Additional Readings:  

Augustin Berque, "Some Traits of Japanese Fudosei" 

Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genus Loci- selected readings 

Roger Trancik, Finding Lost Space - selected readings 

Cosgrove and Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape- selected readings. 

Week 6 - Project Conditions: The Program 

Oct. 9, Use and Inhabitation

Readings:  

Karsten Harries, "The Voices of Space" Unpublished writing. 

Joseph Rykwert, "Meaning and Building," "The Sitting Position" 

Hillier and Hanson, The Social Logic of Space - selected readings 

James Corner, "Three Tyrannies of Contemporary Theory" 

 

Additional Readings:  

Dalibor Vesely, "Architecture and the Conflict of Representation" 

Robert Morris, "An Essay upon Harmony" 

David Leatherbarrow, "Friedrichstadt - A symbol of Toleration" 

Paul Philippe Cret, "Modern Architecture" 

Gray Read, Monticello's Dumbwaiters

Week 7 - Project Conditions: The Architect 

Oct. 16, Mind and Body, Ethics and Ideology  

Readings:  

Karsten Harries, "Space, Place and Ethos" 

Joseph Rykwert, "A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body", "The Corinthian Order" 

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition - selected readings 

Mathilde Petri, "Interview with Sverre Fehn" 

Robin Evans, "Mies van der Rohe's Paradoxical Symmetries" 

 

Additional Readings:  

Van Brundt, "On the Present Condition and Prospects of Architecture" 

Joseph Rykwert, The Dancing Column - selected readings

Week 8 - The Project: The Shape of Time - Workings 

Oct. 23, Reading, Making and Finishing

Readings:  

Peter Testa, "The Making of Architecture" 

Alvaro Siza, "Design as Experience" Alvaro Siza, "To catch a precise moment of flittering image in all its shades" 

Karsten Harries, "The Dream of the Complete Building" 

Peter Schjeldahl, "Concrete and Burton" 

 

Additional Readings:  

George Kubler, The Shape of Time - selected readings 

James Corner, "Operational Eidetics" 

Week 9 The Language of Modification: Case Studies 

Oct. 30, Modification by Reuse, Formal Extension, and Layering  

Case Studies:  

S. Clements, Rome Andrea 

Palladio: S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice 

Juan Navarro Baldeweg: Murcia Cultural Center, Spain 

Irving Gill: Lewis Courts, California 

Alvaro Siza: Selected Projects Modification by Subtraction, Distortion, and Deformation

Pietro de Cortona: S. Maria della Pace, Rome 

Francesco Borromini: S. Carlo all Quatttro Fontane, Rome 

Balthasar Neumann: Vierzehnheiligen, Germany 

Josef Chocol: Villa below Vyesehrad, Prague 

Luis Barragon: House for Luis Barragon, Mexico 

Modification by Opposition, Otherness, and Collage 

The Great Mosque and Cathedral at Cordova 

Frank Gehry: Santa Monica House, California 

Pierre Chareau: Maison de Verre, Paris 

Carlo Scarpa: Castleveccio Museum, Verona and Brion-Vega Cemetery 

 

Readings:  

Kenneth Frampton, "In Praise of Siza" 

Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture - selected readings 

Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture - selected readings 

Adam Gopnik, "The Glass House" 

 

Week 10 Urban Transformations: Case Studies 

Nov. 6  

Case Studies:  

Rome of Sixtus V 

Philadelphia: City Plan as Urban Artifact 

The Hausmann Plan for Paris 

The Spatial Anthropology of Tokyo 

Beijing Rising 

 

Readings:  

Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City - selected readings 

Koetter and Rowe, Collage City-selected readings 

Week 11 Student Presentations 

Nov. 13  

Week 12 Student Presentations 

Nov. 20  

Week 13 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY 

Nov. 27 

Week 14 Student Presentations 

Dec. 4