Course Number: ARC 231
Year: 2nd Year
Track: History
Credit Hours: 3
Semester(s): Fall
Prerequisites: none, but permission of the instructor required for freshman enrollment
Instructor(s): Steven Ehlbeck
Course Description:
Considers the creation, use and interpretation of ancient and medieval architecture from a variety of perspectives: environmental, functional, material, structural, formal, socio-political, and cultural.
Objectives
1. To familiarize the student with the principal architectural achievements from prehistory through the Middle Ages.
2. To present a historical understanding of those works in their social and cultural contexts.
3. To help the student acquire and develop the fundamental critical tools of visual and historical interpretation: a descriptive and analytical vocabulary with which to express visual perception verbally; the ability to identify and evaluate different kinds of historical evidence; and a sense of the complex constitution of historical context.
4. To encourage effective oral and written communication through training in argumentation.
5. To teach the student to think critically about the aspirations, constraints, tools, and choices involved in all architectural design, past and present.
Course Structure & Topics
Lectures and discussion will proceed from a conceptual introduction to fundamental issues and terms through a chronological survey of ancient and medieval traditions which are consistently linked and differentiated by the thematic perspectives listed in the course description above. The traditions covered include:
Prehistoric Architecture: Earth, Sky, and Structure
Egyptian Architecture: Old Kingdom Pyramids and New Kingdom Temples (2 lectures)
Ancient Near Eastern Architecture and Urbanism: Sumerian, Assyrian, Persian
Bronze Age Architecture in the Aegean: Minoan and Mycenaean
Greek Architecture and Urbanism: The Orders, Polis/Acropolis, Hellenistic Experimentation, Urban Planning (4 lectures)
Roman Architecture and Urbanism: Building Types and Building Patrons (3 lectures)
Pre-Columbian Architecture and Urbanism of the Americas: Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, Incan
Early Asian Architecture and Landscape Architecture: Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto (2 lectures)
Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture: Tombs and Churches (2 lectures)
Early Islamic Architecture: Mosques and Palaces
Early Medieval Architecture: Carolingian, Proto-Romanesque in Spain, Romanesque (2 lectures)
Gothic Architecture in France and Elsewhere (3 lectures)
Medieval Military and Vernacular Architecture and Medieval Urbanism (2 lectures)
Course Requirements
In addition to mandatory attendance at lecture and regular participation in discussion, the student is expected to complete all assigned readings, occasional in-class writing exercises, two analytical papers, and two exams.
