HAA 1880 World Cities

(offered infrequently)

What is a city? The sociologist, the anthropologist, the political scientist, the regional planner, and the geographer all see cities from their different perspectives. But the art historian has an important contribution too: cities have been seen for millennia as works of art. Even cities as seemingly "messy" as Las Vegas or Calcutta have an urban form that the art historian can decipher with special expertise. This course looks at the city, both Western and non-Western, to discover its main patterns of urban form and development. Through lectures and discussions, students derive the basic format by which to analyze these patterns. Pittsburgh itself serves as one of several "test cases" in piecing together that format. (If practicable, students will use camcorders to record their visual impressions of it.) Lectures and readings give students the chronological and typological base from which to sharpen their own analytical skills. The principles derived in the early sessions will be used in the final course segment, in which students work on the form and growth of world cities they have selected to study.