Architecture

This course examines the broader social forces & practices that form the built environment, the role of architecture amongst these forces, & its relationship to the lived experience of social & spatial settings.

The millennium following the collapse of the Roman Empire saw the development in Europe of a radically new form of civilization now called "medieval." With its nuns and monks, knights and nobles, troubadours and artists, plagues and famines, crusades and cathedrals, and cities and castles, the Middle Ages left an indelible mark on the western world. Rome, the city of the Popes, played a key role in medieval western civilization and was the center of a long-lasting tradition of pilgrimage to the apostles' and martyrs' relics preserved in its many churches. This course is intended as a broad survey of medieval culture and history with a specific emphasis on Rome. The course takes advantage of the city's abundance of medieval monuments and works of art: mosaics and paintings, sculptures, and religious architecture, which are analyzed in comparison to the artistic production of the rest of Europe, the Byzantine East, and other cultural contexts such as the Islamic world. The reading of relevant historical and literary texts completes the course.

The course presents an outline of Swedish art and visual culture from prehistoric times on to the present era, with insights in art from other Scandinavian countries.  The objects of study comprise diverse types of work such as artwork, mass-produced images and photographs, architecture and urban planning. 

This course investigates the global history of city design and urbanism from ancient times to the contemporary period. Through an interdisciplinary course bibliography and readings in key historical texts on urbanism, students will grasp the major historical trends and philosophies of urban emergence and development. Tutorials centred on Edinburgh site visits and training in research and writing will prepare students to perform first-hand research and compose original scholarship on the built environment. The goal of this course is to give students a critical acumen for evaluating the architectural transformation of the urban realm across disparate cultures and far-flung geographies over time, from Antiquity to the present day.

This course examines Scandinavian design from the 20th century to the present, in light of the international development of design during this period. The growth of modern design in Scandinavia is discussed in relation to early modernist and contemporary design. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to give an overview (from an international perspective) of key events in the history of design in Scandinavia from the past century, describe and characterize objects of Scandinavian design from the past century, and give a global comparative overview of the current place Scandinavian design has in society with regard to the balance of power, gender, ethnicity, and diversity.

The course addresses the foundations and passive systems that enable natural light in indoor spaces through the study of scale models and various types of constructive devices. Topics include: concepts and foundations of natural light; various uses of light; lighting design; developing detailed proposals.