Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
CONTENTS AND OBJECTIVES:
Architecture cannot be understood solely as the design of individual buildings. Reflecting on its role in the making of cities and shaping of contemporary urbanity are of architects’ primary responsibility. The main objective of this course is to engage students with diverse frameworks on analyzing, understanding and interpreting cities in contemporary architectural theory and to provoke them to make critical and stimulating projections on the built environments. The course mainly offers canonical architecture books as the main object of study in order to unfold certain themes that facilitate a more relational approach between architecture and the city. Thus the course dwells on the writings of architectural historians, theoreticians or practitioners since the aim is to understand how the city is framed through different lenses in the field of architecture different than - though not exclusive of - social and political theory, philosophy, geography, etc. The literature covers a period from the early 1970s up until today but unevenly distributed among the periods, which implicitly reflects the rise, intensification and the subsequent “death” of theory in architecture. The seminal sources are brought together to draw a comprehensive yet selective picture of the postmodern and more contemporary debates in architectural theory.
COURSE CONDUCT:
The course will be conducted by means of weekly seminars. Each week is organized around a theme, which will be articulated by one particular book and supplementary readings. Each student in turn will be responsible for presenting the class the theme and the book of the week (as underlined in the schedule) and all the other students are required to read excerpts from the book and/or related literature (as marked with * in the schedule). Students are expected to actively contribute to the discussions by their presentations, comments, questions, etc. At the end of the course, students are required to submit an essay (ca. 3000 words without notes and bibliography). Essays should reflect one of the themes discussed in the class by critically interpreting the related literature with a clear argument. Essays will be evaluated based on the quality and the originality of the content, structure, language and appropriate referencing.
COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES:
The main aim of the course is to provide students with theoretical knowledge that would establish a broad and diverse understanding of how city plays a crucial role in critical architectural design thinking and production. In addition, students are expected to gain adequate knowledge and insight on seminal architecture books that shape the contemporary architectural discourse and acquire the skills for analysis and interpretation of their main arguments in relation to their particular contexts. The course also aims at enhancing academic reading and writing skills of the students.