ARC 386M
The Art and Science of Architectural Phenomena

Instructor: Michael Benedikt
Time: Mondays 7pm -10 pm
Place: Battle Hall 101
Unique #: 00865

This course might be described as an action seminar, created around a set of investigations of certain subtle architectural phenomena. These phenomena ("have you ever noticed...") have to do with light, sound, air, use, memory, color, feeling, scale, the qualities of doors, windows, stairs and other elements of architecture...the specifics of which fall beneath conventional attention and perception. The idea of the seminar is to fuse knowing more about these things with demonstrating that knowledge through works of art that vivify that knowledge for others.

The instructor will introduce two or three new phenomena at each class session. Each will be discussed phenomenologically, poetically, and scientifically. As the semester progresses, students will be asked to look further into the phenomenon that interests them most, and, using the readings as one resource, to report at the next session. 'Mid-term' papers will consist of those reports brought to some level of completeness.

During the second half of the semester lectures by the instructor and reports from students will continue, but the emphasis will shift from pure theory to the development and design of individual Projects: i.e., artworks and demonstrations that focus on one of the phenomena discussed. Each student will be asked to realize and document his or her Project as a public event. Completed, these actions will constitute the course's "final paper." A modest amount of grant money will be available to subsidize the purchase of materials and equipment.

This course is open to graduate students in architecture and studio art. Undergraduates may be admitted with the instructors' permission, obtained before the first day of class.

Readings (sections of):

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception
M. G. F. Minnaert, The Nature Light and Color in the Open Air
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (on reserve) Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus and other Essays