ARCH 5120 continues topics introduced in ARCH 5110, in the midst of World War II, and traces the evolution of architecture culture up to the twenty-first century in the context of an increasingly complex and interconnected world. We are concerned with both material and ideological changes, with key architectural protagonists, projects, and contexts as well as the impact of external historical forces. Lectures move roughly chronologically through a varied array of issues, among them: postwar reconstruction and planning; the culture of the Cold War; the critique of interwar modernism; the emergence of new technologies and postindustrial processes; the burgeoning of suburbanization, consumer culture, and mass media; revisionist and radical approaches to form and space; the rise of new social movements; postmodernism; globalization and the advent of digital culture; and environmental, social, and geopolitical challenges at the turn of the century. As in the previous semester, the course is intended to provide students with a broad knowledge of the architectural history of the period under study and an understanding of architecture’s role and agency in a changing world.
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