This course will be constructed as a lecture-discussion, the purpose being to engage important theoretical issues while simultaneously studying their continuing historical significance. To enhance discussion, there will be three debates to be held in class. Each student will be required to participate in one. Each student will also be required to write three short papers. Class participation is essential and will be factored into the final grade.
All texts will be handed out in advance and will also be available in the library in the reserve list for the class. The texts will be extensively discussed in the class. The purpose of the discussion is to both learn the texts as well as use the texts to provoke questions about contemporary architectural and aesthetic practices.
The semester will be divided roughly into three sections to coincide with the debates. The discussions and debates are intended to demonstrate differences of opinion and enhance awareness of the consequences that these differences have had in specific historical context.
The first section will deal with the definition of the architect and the role of the profession as the discipline of practice. Too often professional practice is seen as the true domain of the architect. We forget that the profession as such is only about 1900 years old and that the debate about its role and its impact on the intellectual fabric of the discipline can still be debated.
The second section will revolve around the idea of nature and metaphysics. Though these too are issues that are rarely discussed, they are essential elements to understanding the philosophical issues that have been raised in aesthetics for centuries.
The third section will focus on Kantian, post-Kantian and phenomenological theories. It will lay the ground work for a deeper understanding of modernist and postmodernist thinking.
The course will portray the history of theory neither as the history of architectural theory exclusively, nor as a series of pre-packaged static pronouncements, but as part of a broader set of issues with an active history that must be continually probed and queried.