American Architectural Culture Since 1945

3 units

This seminar focuses on new ways of thinking about American architecture in the postwar period, to develop new conceptual frameworks to better understand American architecture in the postwar years in its larger context of social, political, and urbanistic change. Unlike a history survey course, it will not only focus on the canonical works of well-known designers such as Mies van der Rohe or Louis Kahn, but will also situate such work within the various new spatial, technological and social directions of the postwar era. It will begin by examining how American architecture changed from the neo-classical and arts and crafts inspired directions of the prewar years into the more fragmented and complex situation after 1945. This course will also consider the complicated ways that American cities in that period were transformed from dense, street-car based industrial environments into sprawling suburban metro areas, typically also becoming racially divided in this process. It will also look at some of the complexities within modern architecture itself, some of which developed directly into post-modenism. These included important innovations in spatial organization, environmental planning, and new building technologies, as well as fundamental changes in landscape design, campus design and public school design which have since become part of mainstream practice. Improtan changes in building technology in this era, which have also tended to be undervalued in the shadow of later concerns about building imagery, will also be addressed.