American Architecture

3 credits · Undergraduate

The first half of this course surveys American architecture from Colonial times to contemporary trends. Stylistic and spatial analysis is linked with the socioeconomic, political, and environmental influences on architecture, issues on originality, American exceptionalism, the influence from abroad, regionalism, and the role of technology. The second half delves more deeply into the history of specific building types--house, church, museum, library--grafting the earlier themes onto a history of modern institutions as they took shape in the United States.