ARCH*2180 BEGINNINGS: FROM THE CONCRETE TO THE BASIC ABSTRACT
3 credits Instructor: Chris Bardt
Beginnings of architectural projects are commonly understood to be abstract (ideas, programs) in nature. It is equally relevant to consider beginnings to be mute and concrete. Ultimately a work of Architecture is both. Abstract qualities such as space, meanings, relations, and truths embody themselves in physical form. In this seminar/ workshop you will begin the degree project process. The vague hunch as question, hypothesis, personal experience, experiments, observations, or favorite site, are all invited as valid beginnings. Developing these into a specific, unique and focused project will be our major goal. Three interdependent beginnings will form the seminar/ workshop. You will make and transform a precise physical entity into an articulate work. You will develop new drawing methods based on quantitative and qualitative study of natural phenomena. And you will continue to develop, through research, writing, drawing and making your degree project. Films, readings and discussions will accompany the workshop.
Pre-Registration by Department
This course satisfies the pre-requisite requirement for Degree Project (FALL)
ARCH*2181 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN THE
20THCENTURY:CIVICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 3 credits Instructor: Anne Tate
This course examines the complex relationships between communities and design. This subject will be approached in two ways: first, by tracing the historical development of communities and community design in North America, highlight case studies as well as general trends: second, by looking at present-day issues and efforts to design communities. These contemporary debates and designs are most often characterized as “sustainable development” and “new urbanism.” The issues surrounding these two movements raise important questions about the possibilities for using design as a tool of social change. The goal of the course is to develop a critical understanding of “sustainability” and “new urbanism” as common threads of debate, and to envision the roles of designers in (re) weaving the social, economic, political, environmental and built fabrics of contemporary communities.
Pre-Registration by Department
This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for Degree Project (FALL) NOT OFFERED 2002-2003
ARCH*2182 THE PRESENCE OF THINGS 3 credits Instructor: Silvia Acosta
This seminar provides a theoretical framework which seeks to make
as these inform our ways to thinking about the nature of objects and spaces. The discussion is centered around a variety of texts examining the body of philosophical thought concerned with aspects of phenomenology. Included are issues revolving around (1) the notion of an emerging self-consciousness dependent on the shifting conception of the world and our place in it; (2) the reasoning of form, meaning and beauty in human experience; (3) the realm of the visible. Participants are responsible for submitting critical works on a weekly basis in addition to conducting their own explorations and application of ideas through a workshop component. The course is open to all
departments at RISD in both undergraduate and graduate levels. Pre-Registration by Department
This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for Degree Project (FALL)
ARCH*2184 ARCHITECTURE OF THE MUTABLE 3 credits Instructor: Peter Tagiuri
Much of architecture gives value to permanence to the memorial function of building: the transience of human occupancy is offset by the stasis of the structure. Alternately, we are drawn to the ephemeral side of architecture, stage set, short lived, nomadic. Perhaps a third way of understanding what gives architecture its relative profundity lies in its mutability, in the traces of encounter, re workings, iterations, uncertainties, failures, revisions, re occupancy, changes of use...
We will look carefully at case studies of mutability in architecture and from these develop methodologies.
Pre-Registration by Department
This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for Degree Project (FALL)
ARCH*2185 TECTONICS: MOTIVATIONS, 3 credits DEFINITIONS & STRATEGIES
Instructor: Lynette Widder
The term "tectonics" is central to contemporary architectural discourse, but only infrequently is the evolution of its definition discussed. Through the consideration of 19th century architecture theoretical texts and a series of 20th century case studies, the course will consider "tectonics" as a theoretical construct and an operative category in architectural design and urbanism. Authors and architects studied include Bötticher, Semper, Ruskin,
Wachsmann, Prouvé and Muratori. Pre-Registration by Department
This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for Degree Project (FALL)
ARTH*H513 ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY IN THE PRE- MODERN MUSLIM WORLD
3 credits Instructor: Elizabeth Hermann
Is there an “Islamic architecture” or an “Islamic city?” Through an examination of three capital cities from the late-medieval to pre-modern period (Mamluk Cairo, Ottoman Constantinople-Istanbul, and Safavud Isfahan) this course will focus on what is unique about the architectural expressions of a particular society, time and place, as well as what aspects of urban and architectural form, and its related use and inscribed meaning, are universal within the Muslim world. Questions of dynastic legitimacy and ideology, patronage trends, social and political structure, ceremonial practices, cultural and political rivalry, cross-cultural exchange, and the impact of each on the evolving urban landscape and its monuments will be explored. Art History Credit
(SPRING)
ARTH*H533 THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE 3 credits Instructor: Ralph Lieberman
A survey of architecture, primarily in Italy, from the early work of Brunelleschi around 1420 to the death of Palladio in 1580. The course is designed to strike a fair balance between biographical presentations of a succession of architects and a consideration of formative local traditions, particularly in Florence, Venice, and Rome. Among the important issues to be considered are the roles of the individual architect and the patron, the continuing influence of medieval traditions, and the place of the antique as both a source and a challenge. Art History Credit
Offered Alternate Years- Next offered 2002-2003 (SPRING)
ARTH*H566 ARCHITECTURE IN THE BAROQUE AGE 3 credits Instructor: Ralph Lieberman
A broad survey of the architecture of the years from about 1600 to 1750. In the early part of the course the emphasis will be o the Rome of Maderno, Bernini, and Borromini, then Guarini in Turin. The last weeks will be devoted to architecture in 17th-century France and 18th-century Germany. Among the issues to be considered are “Baroque” as style or period, the notion of classical Baroque, the transformation of the Roman style as it spread north, and the development of the “open” church in the 18th century.
Art History Credit
(SPRING)
ARTH*H610 THE DECORATED STYLE: GOTHIC IN ENGLAND 3 credits Instructor: Margot Nishimura
In this course we will consider the distinct ways in which the Gothic style developed in England, primarily during the 13th and 14th centuries. Along with the architectural monuments, of which Westminster Abbey in London is perhaps the best known, we will study the sculpture, glass, painting, metalwork, textiles, and manuscript illumination of the period. Students will be required to give several brief presentations and write one lengthy paper.
Art History Credit (SPRING)
ARTH*H693 ARCHITECTURE IN THE TIME OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT
3 credits Instructor: Elizabeth Grossman
This course on eighteenth century architecture and the theory shall consider the ways in which architecture -- particularly the works of Soufflot, Ledoux, and Boulee in France, the Adams brothers and Soane in England, Schinkel in Germany and Jefferson in America -- participated in the revolutionary shifts in ideas about social and economic progress, the new claims for natural rights, the Enlightenment preoccupation with classification and the valuation of happiness -- issues which were even more controversial than they are today. Students will do research projects focusing on the new building types: hospitals, prisons, picturesque gardens, civic buildings, etc., that responded to and also propel 18th century scientific and philosophical debates about physical health and social morality and order.
Lab Fee: $10.00 Art History Credit (SPRING)
LAEL*LE22 MODERN ARCHITECTURE 3 credits Instructors: J. Wolin/ E. Grossman
The course will focus on the diverse new roles encountered by the architect in the 20th century: form maker, administrator of urban development, social theorist, cultural interpreter, ideologue. Emphasis will be placed upon the increasing interdependence of architecture and the city, and the recurrent conflicts between mind and hand, modernity and locality, expressionism and universality.
Course is required of all sophomores in Architecture and Interior Architecture.
Art History Credit for architecture majors, Liberal Arts Elective Credit for all others
LAEL*LE59 FROM ARISTOTLE TO DERRIDA: LITERATURE OF THE VISUAL ARTS
3 credits Instructor: Henry Fernandez
This course will examine the literature of the visual arts as it primarily pertains to architectural theoretical issues. Weekly discussion will include analysis of writings on architecture, painting, and sculpture from Antiquity to Twentieth Century. A wide range of authors will be discussed from Antiquity to the twentieth century. Items for discussion will include how written work relates to artists actual practice; the place of artistic theory within the parameters of its cultural context, and how the aesthetic agenda of the literature of the visual arts has changed over the course of history.
Liberal Arts Elective Credit (FALL)