ARC 386M
Theory III

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

This course might be described as an "action seminar" based a set of investigations of subtle architectural phenomena.  These phenomena have to do with light, sound, air, use, memory, color, feeling, scale, with the esthetic and functional qualities of doors, windows, stairs and other elements of architecture that fall beneath conventional attention and perception.  The idea is to fuse knowing about these things with acting upon that knowledge through on-site works 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 and individual research as another, 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 theory to the development  and design of individual Projects: i.e., on-site 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, Architecture Library)
Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus and other Essays