Thinking About Architecture: In History and at Present

Readings

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Course introduction	“The Vision.” In The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Henry Watson Fowler and F. G. Fowler. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar, 2009, pp. 1-7. ISBN: 9781103536498.
2	Modernity	Plato. “Book VII, 514a-518d: The Cave.” In The Republic. Translated by Desmond Lee. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 2007. ISBN: 9780140455113. ———. “Book X.” In The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780691097183. ———. “Book VI.” In The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780691097183.
3	Metaphysics and anti-metaphysics	Tschumi, Bernard. “Architecture and Limits,” “Violence of Architecture,” and “Disjunctions.” In Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 101-140, 207-204. ISBN: 9780262700603. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Sections 108, 109, 115-117, 124-126. In The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York, NY: Vintage, 1974. ISBN: 9780394719856. ———. “Preface,” and “First Treatise: ‘Good and Evil,’ ‘Good and Bad’.” In On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1998, pp. 1-33. ISBN: 9780872202832.
4	Debate 1
5	Social contract	Rousseau, Jean. The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right. Latrobe, Benjamin. “Letter to Robert Mills.” In The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Volume 2, 1805-1810. Edited by John Van Horne. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 239-244. Locke, John. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” Chapter 2 in The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. New York, NY: Dover, 2002. ISBN: 9780486424644. Kant, Immanuel. “Analytic of the Sublime.” In Critique of Judgement. Book II, sections 40-54. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780192806178.
6	Defining the architect	Tafuri, Manfredo, and Luisa Passerini. “History as Project: An Interview with Manfredo Tafuri.” ANY no. 25/26 (2000): extracts from pp. 28-31. Vitruvius. On Architecture. Book 1. Translated by Frank Granger. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931. ISBN: 9780674992771. Gropius, Walter. Scope of Total Architecture. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1955, excerpts. (Twelve points, beginning with “I sum up my conclusions for a transitional approach in architectural education”)
7	Avant-garde	Greenberg, Clement. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.” In Perceptions and Judgements, 1939-1944 (The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1). Edited by John O’Brian. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 5-22. ISBN: 9780226306179. Stirner, Max. The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority. New York, NY: Dover, 2005, excerpts. ISBN: 9780486445816.
8	Debate 2
9	Psychology	Vischer, Robert. “On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics.” In Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893. Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art, 1994, pp. 92-98. ISBN: 9780892362592. Arnheim, Rudolf. The Dynamics of Architectural Form. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009, pp. 258-259 and 262-274. ISBN: 9780520261259. Greenberg, Clement. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.” In Perceptions and Judgements, 1939-1944 (The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1). Edited by John O’Brian. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 5-22. ISBN: 9780226306179.
10	Husserl	Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson. New York, NY: Collier, 1969, pp. 45-55, 171-179, and 242-243. ———. “Philosophy as Rigorous Science.” In Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy. Translated by Quentin Lauer. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1965, pp. 71-75, 98-109, 136-137, and 142-143. ISBN: 9780061311703.
11	Heidegger	Heidegger, Martin. “Building Dwelling Thinking.” In Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2001. ISBN: 9780060937287. Norberg-Schultz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1991, selected pages. ISBN: 9780847802876.
12	Debate 3
13	Course wrap-up	Fussell, Paul. Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. New York, NY: Touchstone, 1992, pp. 26-33, 38-39, 51-59, 64-65, 80-81, 90-93, 162-163, and 194-197. ISBN: 9780671792251.