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WEEK
1: INTRODUCTION: PATTERNS OF COMMUNITY AND CONFLICT
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American particularism and transnational influences; cultural histories of architecture, landscapes, streets, and urban policies; the distinctiveness of place and the patterns of cultural norms.
** Architectural history is an essential underpinning to the broad patterns of urban design. Dell Upton, Architecture in the United States (New York, l998) is recommended or (more conventionally) Leland M. Roth, A Concise History of American Architecture(New York, l979). Useful sources for visual references include John Reps, The Making of Urban America (Princeton, l959; l995); Alexander Garvan, The American City (New York, l996); and Jon Lang, Urban Design: The American Experience (New York, l994).
On contemporary implications of urban history see Civitas? What Is City? Harvard Architecture Review 10 (New York, 1998); K. Michael Hays and Carol Burns, ed., Thinking the Present: Recent American Architecture (New York, l990), especially the essays by Herbert Muschamp and Hal Foster; and Alex Krieger, "The American City: Ideal and Mythic Aspects of a Reinvented Urbanism," Assemblage 3 (July l987): 39-59).
** Please note: Although there is a condensed reader for the class, students are encouraged to explore beyond these excerpts in the original texts kept on reserve, especially for illustrations.
QUESTIONS:
1. What are distinctively American kinds of urban forms, spaces and experiences? What kinds of variations and alternatives exist here? What has been imported from other places (Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America)? What real and imaginary spaces have been exported from here to other parts of the world?
2. What kinds of spaces tell us something about how these cities work, how they are experienced, how they change over time? Think first about "iconic" spaces that represent urbanity and specifically American urbanism, both good and bad. What places evoke "the city" for different groups?
3. Then consider "typological" spaces designated for/symbolic of activities like business, domestic life, industry, transportation (local and long-distance), shopping, entertainment, leisure, health. How do we know these uses? What happens when they change?
4. Finally consider various ways to study cities. What can you learn from aerial views; site plans; axonometric or perspective drawings; diagrams and statistical charts; digital imagery; street photographs (with people or without them; taken in the morning or nighttime; professional images and amateur snapshots); etc? What about different kinds of texts (diaries; journalism; professional reports; novels; poetry; historical treatises; manifestos about the future; etc.)? What are the limitations of each of these modes? What tends to be left out?
5. Finally, ask yourself what you expect to learn from this class. How will you ask questions or raise alternative views? What can you explore on your own? Who else will you talk to about your thoughts? Where will you go? What will you look for? Think about specific places, streets and neighborhoods you can visit on the weekends, or when you go home for vacation. Banish boredom. Cities are always filled with surprises.