S Y L L A B U S
Instructor's Comments
The course described below is part of an 8-course major called "Urban
Design Studies" which includes courses called Urban Design and the Law;
Decision-Making & Urban Design; Ideology & Urban Design: Environmental
Design: lssues & Methods; Urban (technical) Options for the Future
Course description:
The course is divided into two unequal parts. The first provides
students with an overview of urban building types that are particular
to a given culture or historic period (the Greek acropolis, the Roman
amphitheater, etc.) as well as characteristic urban building types of
all periods (religious buildings, facilities for water supply, etc.)
The second part of the course, much longer than the first part,
presents cities in western culture in chronological order. While the
first part of the course may discuss, let us say, street systems,
something so general as to be worldwide (and therefore some Chinese or
other non- western patterns may be mentioned), the second part of the
course keeps within the boundaries of western culture. This is due to
two factors: 1) time limits in a fourteen-week course 2) the expertise
of the instructor. In the second part of the course, we begin with an
account of Greek cities, move to Roman ones, and follow with an account
of urban reduction in the early middle ages, the revival of urbanism in
the later middle ages, the development of new urban consciousness and
forms to match during the Renaissance, alterations especially to urban
public spaces (streets, plazas, fountains) in the late Renaissance, and
follow with the early modern city. This is the product of the
Industrial Revolution, of which the physical manifestations are
discussed (canals, railroads, mills, docks, factories, industrial towns
both atrocious and paternalistic, etc.). Practical or benevolent or
romantic or utopian alternatives to the early modern city are also
discussed. The last group of lectures deals with planning theory of the
present century--Garden Cities, Beaux-Arts plans, the 1920s "radiant
city," autocratic planning in the 1930s, etc.
Course requirements
Class attendance, because there is no textbook; the lectures
provide a kind of textbook by introducing material treated at greater
length by the course readings.
Midterm examination, or two small quizzes; the system changes
each time the course is given.
Final essay examination
Term paper, based on research done at the New York Public
Library. Length: about 15 pages. Footnoted, with bibliography. The
aim is to introduce students to research tools, bibliographies, indices,
atlases, census data, etc. in the field of historic urban building.
Course emphasis
Is placed on the historical information conveyed by the built
environment. This differentiates our course from purely historical
accounts of cities, in which the physical city may be given less
emphasis than, for instance, social or economic or political factors.
Course readings
Most of Lewis Mumford, The City in History
Anthony Sutcliffe, The Autumn of Central Paris
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, London. The Unique City
Richard Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII
Colin and Rose Bell, City Fathers
The list is subject to some modification, but the books by
Mumford and Rasmussen are perennial favorites of our students.
There is widespread but not universal enthusiasm for the others. Each
time that the course is offered, the reading list is altered slightly,
and of course, account is taken of new publications in the field.
Class lecture time: Two lectures per week, each 75 minutes.
Teacher is available for conferences, but there are no discussion
sections for the whole class.
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