Spring 2022
HSPV Weekly Course Schedule as of 01-10-2022
Public History of the Built Environment
Elective - HSPV 534
Milroy
This graduate seminar explores ways of bringing histories of place before the public. It is required for Preservation students wishing to concentrate in this area (for whom HSPV 600 is a prerequisite) but is relevant to historians, designers, curators, and critical observers of all stripes. More than conventional public history courses, this one focuses on the built environment. It grapples with the tangible ways individuals, communities, and nations remember and forget. It acknowledges that while buildings and landscapes are in one sense simply larger forms of material culture than furniture or other objects, they also “work” differently by dint of being inhabited and publicly encountered, forming de facto frameworks for private and public life. Our coursework foregrounds interpretation and dissemination through multiple media – everything from signage and monuments to websites and exhibits. It is not, however, an introduction to the technical deployment of those media but a chance to reflect critically on their respective strengths and weaknesses in different contexts. In addition to discussing readings in history, historic preservation, sociology, anthropology, geography, and public art, students will design and conduct original research projects involving:
- interviews with Philadelphians from diverse backgrounds about their experiences of various urban landscapes;
- archival research involving architecture, city and regional planning, urban infrastructure, civic culture, and historical commemoration; and
- conceptual design of monuments, installations, public events, and other forms of commemoration. Field trips will ground class discussions in the present-day fabric of Philadelphia while guest speakers will acquaint us with a variety of institutional and disciplinary perspectives. HSPV 534-001 Syllabus for Spring 2021.
View syllabus for HSPV 534 Public History of the Built Environment.
Cultural Landscapes
Elective - HSPV 538 / LARP 738
Mason
The course surveys and critically engages the field of cultural landscape studies. Over the semester, we will explore cultural landscape as a concept, theory and model of preservation and design practice; we will read cultural landscape historiography and creative non-fiction; we will examine a range of types (national parks, community gardens, designed landscapes, informal public spaces), and we will map the alternative preservation, planning and design methods that ground cultural landscape studies practically. Readings, class discussions, and projects will draw on cultural geography, environmental history, vernacular architecture, ecology, art, and writing.
View syllabus for HSPV 538 / LARP 738 Cultural Landscapes.
Building Pathology
Elective - HSPV 551
Henry
This course addresses the subject of deterioration of buildings, their materials, assemblies and systems, with the emphasis on the technical aspects of the mechanisms of deterioration and their enabling factors, material durability and longevity of assemblies. Details of construction and assemblies are analyzed relative to functional and performance characteristics. Lectures cover: concepts in durability; climate; psychrometric, soils & hydrologic; conditions; physics of moisture in buildings; enclosure, wall and roof systems; structural systems; and building services systems with attention to performance, deterioration, and approaches to evaluation of remedial interventions.
View syllabus for HSPV 551 Building Pathology.
Ruins & Reconstruction
Elective - HSPV 585 / ANTH 585
Meskell
This class examines our enduring fascination with ruins coupled with our commitments to reconstruction from theoretical, ethical, socio-political and practical perspectives. This includes analyzing international conventions and principles, to the work of heritage agencies and NGOs, to the implications for specific local communities and development trajectories. We will explore global case studies featuring archaeological and monumental sites with an attention to context and communities, as well as the construction of expertise and implications of international intervention. Issues of conservation from the material to the digital will also be examined. Throughout the course we will be asking what a future in ruins holds for a variety of fields and disciplines, as well as those who have most to win or lose in the preservation of the past.
View syllabus for HSPV 585 / ANTH 585 Ruins & Reconstruction.
Documentation, Research, Recording II
Core First Year - HSPV 601-001
Hinchman & Elliott
This course provides an introduction to the survey and recording of historic buildings and sites. Techniques of recording include traditional as well as digitally-based methods including field survey, measured drawings, photography and rectified photography. Emphasis is placed on the use of appropriate recording tools in the context of a thorough understanding of the historical significance, form and function of sites. Required for first-year MSHP students; others by permission.
View syllabus for HSPV 601 Documentation, Research, Recording II.
Preservation Economics
Elective - HSPV 625
Rypkema
This class examines our enduring fascination with ruins coupled with our commitments to reconstruction from theoretical, ethical, socio-political and practical perspectives. This includes analyzing international conventions and principles, to the work of heritage agencies and NGOs, to the implications for specific local communities and development trajectories. We will explore global case studies featuring archaeological and monumental sites with an attention to context and communities, as well as the construction of expertise and implications of international intervention. Issues of conservation from the material to the digital will also be examined. Throughout the course we will be asking what a future in ruins holds for a variety of fields and disciplines, as well as those who have most to win or lose in the preservation of the past.
View syllabus for HSPV 625 Preservation Economics.
Digital Media for Historic Preservation II (First Half of Semester Only)
Core First Year - HSPV 627
Hinchman
A required praxis course designed for students to further explore the techniques and applications of digital media for visual and textual communication. Techniques will be discussed for preservation use including survey, documentation, relational databases, and digital imaging and modeling.
Theories of Historic Preservation II (Second Half of Semester Only)
Core First Year - HSPV 661
Mason
Theories of historic preservation serve as models for practice, integrating the humanistic, artistic, design, scientific and political understandings of the field. HSPV 661 builds on HSPV 660, which examines the historical evolution of historic preservation, reviews theoretical frameworks and issues, and explores current modes of practice. HSPV 661 engages advanced topics such as cultural landscape theory, economics of preservation, sustainability and environmental conservation, social justice, and urban design. In addition to readings and lectures, case studies from contemporary practice will be used to examine theories in practice. Students from outside the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation are welcome; instructor's permission is required for any non-HSPV student. (Note that the course is the second of two parts; the first half, on the basics of preservation theory is taught in the fall semester.)
View syllabus for HSPV 661 Theories of Historic Preservation II.
Preservation Law
Elective - HSPV 671
Nelson
Introduction to the legal mechanisms used to protect historic resources in the built environment, focusing on the legal principles underlying preservation laws, including constitutional issues relating to governmental regulation of real property, as well as federal, state and local historic preservation laws.
View syllabus for HSPV 671 Preservation Law.
Topical Seminar, Urban Regeneration In The Americas: The Conservation And Development Of Urban Heritage Areas
Elective - HSPV 703 / CPLN 773
Rojas
This advanced topic seminar will focus on the challenges confronted by the conservation and urban planning professions in turning the urban heritage into a social and economic development resource for cities in developing countries. The preservation of the urban heritage is moving to a new paradigm of intervention responding to: a growing interest in communities for preserving their intangible and tangible urban heritage; rising development pressures on historic neighborhoods; the generalization of adaptive rehabilitation as a conservation strategy; and recent international agreements calling for expanding the role of the urban heritage in the social and economic development of the communities. This is a problem that is in the cutting edge of the research and practice of heritage conservation and urban planning and has conservation, planning and design implications making it ideally suited to a multi-discipline seminar approach. The course is modeled on successful 1-CU spring seminars conducted in recent years—the Gordion Site Planning Studio (2011), Parks for the People (2012), and the Regeneration of Historic Areas in the Americas (2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020)—that attracted students from across the School and fit easily with core studios and thesis projects. Students from multiple departments are encouraged to participate in the course; enrollment will be kept to about 12. The course will combine seminar and field study methodologies in ways that they support each other. The knowledge acquired through the seminar work will be put to use in a field study exercise whose objective is to allow the students to work on topics of their interest and pursue research or urban development and heritage conservation interventions for expanding the contribution of the historic center of San Juan in Puerto Rico to the social and economic development of the city.
View syllabus for HSPV 703 Urban Regeneration in The Americas.
Thesis Workshop II
Core Second Year - HSPV 711
Staff
The Historic Preservation’s Thesis course is a two semester 2 CU capstone required of all MSHP candidates. The goal of the individual Thesis is demonstrated mastery of the research process by exploring a question of academic/professional relevance to the preservation field and presenting the results of the study in accordance with the highest standards of scholarly publishing. The Thesis spans the academic year, beginning with HSPV 710/Thesis I in the fall semester and pending successful completion, continues in the spring with HSPV 711/Thesis II. Students are required to successfully complete 9-10 CUs (the first year of the curriculum before beginning the Thesis process. Dual degree students are required to enroll in HSPV 710 only before undertaking thesis studio in their respective dual program in their final year. Thesis II follows Thesis I with a focus on writing and developing the research methods explored in Thesis I. During Thesis II, students work with their individual academic advisors and come together periodically to present their progress and participate in advanced workshops on publishing and publication, peer-review, and specific methods related to each concentration.
View syllabus for HSPV 711 Thesis Workshop II.
Conservation Seminar: Finishes
Elective - HSPV 740
Myers
The seminar will advance students’ knowledge of and skills at researching, analyzing and interpreting historic architectural finishes. Lectures, demonstrations, hands-on exercises, case studies, and site visits will consider the history, technology, analysis, deterioration, and treatment of historic finishes. Guest lecturers will enlarge the subject with discussion and demonstrations of archival research of finishes, advanced methods of scientific analysis and presentation of a long-term project to analyze and conserve historic finishes at the US Treasury Building (Robert Mills). The course will also address historic plaster with a guest lecture and demonstration of plaster materials, application, and casting for ornamental plaster. We will make and apply paints and other finishes in class. A visit to the decorative arts studio and Philadelphia sites displaying decorative painting will complement lectures and assignments. Bartram's Garden, the eighteenth-century home of botanist John Bartram in West Philadelphia, will serve as a case study and subject for the final assignment.
View the syllabus for HSPV 740 Conservation Seminar: Finishes.
Topics in Historic Preservation: Modern Matters
Elective - HSPV 741
Matero & Matteini
This seminar will address the thorny issues surrounding the conservation of modern built heritage. The course will begin with a discussion about the challenges of conserving modern heritage within the framework of historic conservation practice and philosophy. Lectures will focus on a select number of common materials and systems that defined the latter 20th century such as reinforced concrete, curtain walls, and pre-fabrication. Case studies will illustrate the discussed concepts and demonstrate practical conservation solutions including Unity Temple, the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), Fallingwater, Lever House, Taliesin West, Nakashima House and Studios, and Richards Laboratories among others.
View syllabus for HSPV 741 Modern Matters.