AR 2115: Topics in Architecture Since 1960

This course offers a detailed overview of the history of architecture between the consolidation of modern architecture in standard architectural practice and the present period of pluralism. Topics covered will include: modernism and its critique in the developing world; Louis I. Kahn’s and Robert Venturi’s critiques of modernist architecture culture; the High-Tech movement; utopian alternatives to the modernist city; the return of pre-modern urbanism; Critical Regionalism; the rise of Postmodernism 1970-80; the developer-led architectural boom of the 1980s; “Deconstructivism” and critical dissolution of rationalist form; the introduction of CAD in architectural design and its impact on the “blob architecture” of Frank Gehry and others; the development of global models of architectural practice; sustainable architecture and urbanism; global developments in other, related design fields and their consumer culture.