Renaissance Architecture

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In 1419, a Florentine goldsmith designed a building that changed the history of Western architecture. It was the first structure since antiquity to systematically apply the formal vocabulary of ancient Greco-Roman architecture. This new experiment with old ideas took Florence and then Europe by storm. In this course, we will investigate the revival—and transformation—of the classical architectural language, the emerging ideas about architectural authorship, the ability of architectural forms and materials to convey particular meanings to particular audiences, and the deployment of architecture as an instrument of power.