Reimagining the City: Mediums of Speculation

Undergraduate

This course examines how “the city” has been deployed not only as a subject of speculation, but also as a medium for reimagining worlds. This seminar studies and explores the ways architects, urbanists, designers, writers, artists, and filmmakers have reimagined the city to uncover, probe, and critique ideas, ideals and values about urbanism and the built environment contained and imbricated by these representations. It focuses on the architecture of the built environment depicted in paintings, photographs, films, drawings, maps, models, urban plans, virtual reality machines, and games as well as literary fiction. The course is structured according to various mediums of speculation reimagining the city, montaging a visual history of urbanism and architectural theories about the city. The course toggles between close reading/viewing and analysis of creative forms of writing, art, architecture, and film, and a series of in-class workshops in support of creative exercises. Discussion of assigned readings and course materials is interspersed with organized screenings, viewings of collections, and visits to archives. Workshops engage a range of creative mediums to provide students opportunities and tools to experiment with and develop methods of speculation as they critique and create their own re-imaginings of the city. T 1:30pm-3:25pm