ARCH-4690

Case Studies: Investigations into Architectural Knowledge

“The best instructor of all...is a building which is being pulled down.” (John Willis Clark, “On the Construction of the Vaults of the Middle Ages,” 1842) Buildings embody cultural knowledge. Their forms and spaces are invested with traces of habitation and beliefs through the employment of materials that are wrought by craft and technology. It is the intention of this course to learn how to investigate buildings in order to reveal the technological and cultural knowledge that is embedded within them. In this course a select number of significant buildings are “disassembled” through intense questioning, and their artifactual significance is probed through careful analysis. Prerequisites: ARCH-4560, ARCH-4140, ARCH-4330 and ARCH-4560; A pre- or co-requisite to ARCH-4300. Fall term annually.

4 credit hours