HAA 0510 Pittsburgh Architecture and Urbanism

(offered infrequently)

This course seeks to understand how we shape the physical environment of Pittsburgh, and how it shapes us. Two disciplines are united in the course: the histories of architecture and urbanism, and their interaction in creating and sustaining the city of Pittsburgh. The course is an outgrowth of the instructor's book, Pittsburgh: A New Portrait (2009). Like the book, the course studies the physical environment of Pittsburgh: its topography, early patterns of settlement, the expansion of its industrial center, the creation of residential neighborhoods, the post-World War II "Renaissance," and the urban implications of the current shift from production to a service-based economy. But the course goes beyond the book to study Pittsburgh's long-term urban patterns over the past few centuries, and how they created the Pittsburgh we see today. This includes a detailed study of Pittsburgh' architecture.