HAA 1480 Architecture since 1945

(offered infrequently)

An exploration of the major tendencies and innovations in world architecture since World War II, with a focus on the relationships between purpose, containment, flow and image in both individual buildings and built environments. After a consideration of the persisting influence of modern masters such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn and Phillip Johnson, key foci will include expressive organicism during the 1950s, New Brutalism and Pop Avant-gardism in the 1960s, Postmodernism from the 1970s, Deconstruction during the 1980s, Spectacle architecture and digital design since the 1990s, and Critical Regionalism throughout the period. A key (and open) question will be whether these changes are symptoms of a constantly mutating modernist architecture or of a broad shift from modern to contemporary architecture. We will also be alert to the impact on architectural practice of theories of form, of philosophical theories and of competing histories of modern architecture. And we will remain aware that these tendencies unfold against the always-accumulating stock of retardaire architecture that dominates the built environment everywhere. In the last third of the course, recent architecture will be examined for its responses to contemporary demands including symbolic complexity, sustainability, indigeneity, the creation of habitat, civic form vis-à-vis civil society, and social organization versus dwelling and community. Students will be encouraged to develop their skills in visual analysis by examining designs, plans, renderings and completed buildings and urban projects, as well as by undertaking comparative analyses of different modes of historical interpretation. Written assignments for the course, in addition to exams, will facilitate the development of such skills through take-home essays.