A4374 Contemporary Theory and Criticism of Architecture
History/Theory SeminarMary McLeod
INTRODUCTION
This seminar examines some of the theoretical and critical approaches current in architecture debate from 1960 to the present. The course focuses in particular on the question of meaning in architecture, beginning with approaches influenced by semiology and structuralism to establish an architecture of greater signification, and concluding with recent trends influenced by post-structuralist theories th at challenge the possibility of architecture meaning. Certain classes will consider general theoretical approaches, usually originating in philosophy or literary criticism; others will examine specific currents in architecture in relation to these theoretical approaches.
READINGS
Seminars will be structured primarily around the assigned readings, which include: Roland Barthes, The Eiffel Tower ; Jurgen Habermas, Modernism: An Incomplete Project ; J. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition; Andreas Huyssen, Mapping the Postmodern ; Jacques Derrida, Structure, Sign and Play in the discourse of the Human Sciences ; Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus ; Alan Colquhoun, Historicism and the Limits of Semiology ; Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture; Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City; Raphael Moneo, On Typology ; Peter Eisenman, Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure ; Bernard Tschumi, Six Concepts ; and Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt.
REQUIREMENTS
Three brief papers (2 papers 3-5 pp.; 1 paper 5-6 pp.), discussing issues raised by the readings. Several informal seminar presentations. All assigned readings must be read before the appropriate class.
SCHEDULE
Section I: Semiology and Structuralism
Assignment I
Students are to write either a semiological analysis of a recent public building or a critique of one or several of the assigned texts, focusing on a significant theme raised by the readings.
Section II: Postmodernism (historical styles, regionalism, contextualism)
Section III: Typology
Assignment II
A critical analysis comparing Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter's Collage City to Aldo Rossi's The Architecture of the City
or
A critical analysis comparing Aldo Rossi's position in The Architecture of the City and that in A Scientific Autobiography
or
A critical analysis of either Kenneth Frampton's Towards a Critical Regionalism or Robert Venturi s Complexity and Contradiction.
Section IV: Post-structuralism and other interpretations of postmodernism
Section V: Post-structuralism and Architecture: Deconstructivism
Assignment III
An analytical critique of Wigley's book (either in comparison with the MOMA catalogue or not) or one of the assigned essays. The essay should, in some respect, deal with the social or political implications of the author s interpretation of post-structuralist currents of postmodernism.
or
A critique of notions of folding in architecture (may focus on one essay or building) relative to Deleuze s ideas. Address here the issue of formalism relative to D. And G. s social/cultural/biological agenda.