ARCH 446
Italian Urban History
About
SPRING / FALL 2022
Teaching Team:
Rick Haldenby
Student Works:
Madeline Hope Engen
Yoon Hur
Mary Ma
Arch 446/684 rests on the principle that the City, in fact and idea, is the primary source for architectural thought and ambition; a central metaphor and motivator of design activity; and a defining condition for every design project. The city is, before all, the great human creation. To come to Italy is to be immersed in an urban tradition that stretches back millennia and provides a wealth of experience: from the streets and piazzas of baroque Rome, to the lucidity and order of the Renaissance city, to the immense symbolic power, freedom and energy of the cities and towns of Medieval Italy, and, underlying it all, the foundations laid out in antiquity. Most of all the aim is to see the city as a system of spaces and forms that follow and express ideas about human order and sustain urban life. The course challenges you to use drawing as a medium to describe, analyze and speculate with the city according to terms that you establish and explore. In the course you will be presented with ideas about the city and with many examples of forces that influenced its form and the actual spaces and buildings in Rome and other Italian cities between the ‘fall” of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the modern world. You will make a graphic record of your experience in Italy – your experience of architecture and the city. You will learn to read cities, urban armatures, hierarchies, monuments and building types. You will also be presented with many examples of architectural drawing and mappings from the past. How have cities been represented. What do these representations say about how the city is understood and what characteristics are valued. These images can inform and inspire you in your drawing.
