Arch & Interiors History (AHST)

By tracing significant historical themes, this course spotlights canonic examples of Western and non-Western architecture, interiors, and landscape design from Ancient times to the Medieval period. Major monuments of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas are examined as solutions to technical problems, utilizing available materials, and as spatial and structural embodiments of cultural belief systems. Students acquire a working vocabulary for both analyzing and evaluating the built environment and material culture.

Focusing upon global changes relative to patterns of patronage, and the intersection of church and state, this course highlights significant examples of Western and non-Western architecture and interiors produced from the 14th through the mid-18th centuries. Each case study is situated within a broad historical context and understood as paradigmatic of a period?s values and aspirations that are given concrete form through available materials, construction methods, and technologies. Students acquire a working vocabulary for both analyzing and evaluating architecture, interiors, and material culture.

History III: Early Modern Architecture and Interiors (1750-1930) This course chronicles the impact of Enlightenment thinking and of the shifting definitions of modernity upon architecture and interior design by tracing the transition from Historicism to the International Style. New notions of progress and evolution; industrialization and urbanization; and debates concerning the role of the machine and the meaning of ornament are set against major technological advances. Students examine key theoretical texts and accomplish archival research on an historic structure in the Philadelphia area. [Writing Intensive]

History IV: Modern/Contemporary Architecture and Interiors (1930-Present) This course analyzes major movements and theoretical constructs that have dominated architecture and interior design from the post-World War II period until the present. Discussion focuses upon societal and environmental aspects? politics, economics, science and technology, psychology, etc. ? that shape the greater context for architecture, interiors and the allied arts. Students examine key theoretical texts to evaluate current thinking relative to issues such as sustainability, critical regionalism, phenomenology and the role of the digital in contemporary practice. [Writing Intensive]