MIT 523E - Special Topics in Archit.Hist.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course the students will
- To develop an advanced understanding on nineteenth century architecture and urbanism in European context.
- To learn how to conduct research and write an essay at graduate level
- To conceptualize historical continuity and change and development in cross-cultural perspective.
- To acquire advanced reading and writing skills in architecture
- To comprehend ‘the building’ as an architectural artifact formed by social, economical and cultural aspects.
- Understand characteristics of non-European trajectories of modernity.

Course Description

This is a graduate level course on the history of modernization in the contexts of 19th century in European and non-European experiences and their historiography. This course aims to create critical point of view towards modernization of the Europe, the Ottoman Empire and their contemporaries by raising questions about the developments in the fields of architecture and urbanism. Each week, the students will have in-deep readings on various aspects of modernism, and they will be nurtured by in-class discussions.