Prerequisites

None.

Educational Objectives

1. To introduce students to fundamental theories of architecture in the 20th and early 21st century.
2. To help all participants in the course to become better designers producing stronger, more sophisticated work.
3. To learn how to transfer the work of others (both writing and building) into fuel to enrich one's own design work.
4. To help begin to clarify how individual students' values and backgrounds can influence their design positively.

Educational Approach

This will be a standard seminar course with presentations by the instructor and class discussions in early sessions based on reading assignments. Toward the end of the semester students will be focusing on their own individual projects and papers which will be subjects or discussion in class.

Evaluation

The final grade will be based on four different areas of evaluation:

1. 30% of the grade will come from "Think Sheets" and class participation.
2. 50% of the grade will come from the Research Paper.
3. 10% off the grade will come either from a student's Paper Presentation in class or from a Demonstrative Project tied to the student's Manifesto.
4. 10% of the grade will come from the Manifesto.

Readings

Four primary texts will be required reading:
Kindergarten Chats by Louis Sullivan
Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi
Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas