The Critical Evolution of Modern Architecture: CIAM, Team 10, and Other Modern Traditions

3 units

A graduate seminar exploring the critical evolution of the modern movement in architecture, from the founding of the CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) in 1928 to the emergence, within and parallel to CIAM, of what has sometimes been called the Other Tradition of modern architecture, which involved both the work of pivotal individual practitioners, as well as the emergence of collective movements, most particularly Team 10, from 1953-82; a series of regional schools of architecture, from 1945-65; and the Neo-Rationalist movement, from 1966-90. The seminar will also explore the work of selected contemporary practices that exemplify the critical evolution of modern architecture. Each class meeting will involve lectures by the two professors regarding the critical evolution of modern architecture, as well as brief student presentations on specific post-WWII projects. The lectures and presentation will form the basis of discussions of the architectural and urbanistic ideas of Le Corbusier, Josep Lluís Sert, Alvar Aalto, Ernesto Rogers, Aldo van Eyck, Jacob Bakema, Alison and Peter Smithson, Candilis-Josic-Woods, Paul Rudolph, William Wurster, Craig Ellwood, Giancarlo de Carlo, Louis Kahn, Colin St John Wilson, Aldo Rossi, as well as contemporary practitioners such as Fumihiko Maki, Charles Correa, Herman Hertzberger, Rafael Moneo, and others. Analytical methods employed in the student presentations will address contextual, cultural, material, constructive, and experiential attributes of buildings.