History of Art and Architecture,
University of Pittsburgh; Fall Term 2011 (term 2121)
HAA1531/CRN24132 (graduate
HAA2531/CRN 24131); Frick Fine Arts Rm 203; Tuesdays 2:30-4:55 p.m.
Prof. Franklin Toker
MODERN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
CLASS MEETINGS AND THEMES
1. Tuesday August 30: Heights and fallows in American architecture; the Civil War as the
great divide; Frank Furness and the victory of vocabulary
2. September 6: H.
H. Richardson and the victory of syntax
3. September 13: The
new technology; Chicago and the "tall office building"; Burnham and
Root
4. September 20: Sullivan
seeks a synthesis
5. September 27: The
return of classicism; Beaux-Arts and
The City Beautiful; McKim, Mead, and White
6. October 4: Dissenters:
Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright
Two
take-home essay topics for the first midterm will be handed out in class today.
Email your essay responses to the instructor before midnight October 16 for two
bonus points; or in any case before midnight Tuesday October 18.
[October 11: NO CLASS, since University holding
October 10 classes one day later]
7. October 18: Midterm
test followed by regular class on Other
progressives through the First World War, California and elsewhere
8. October 25: Modernism
and antimodernism between the two World Wars; Second career of Frank Lloyd
Wright
9. November 1: Second
conservative reaction: revival styles of the interwar years
10. November 8: Impact
of European immigrant modernists
11. November 15: Triumph
of the International Style, and Reaction; Wright's Third Career
12. November 22: Impact
of Expressionism and Late Beaux-Arts
Two
take-home essay topics for the second midterm will be handed out in class
today. Email your essay responses to the instructor before midnight Monday,
December 5 for two bonus points; or in any case before midnight Tuesday
December 6.
13. November 29: Directions
today; grouped student presentations on American buildings since 1990.
14. December 6: Second
midterm
CLASS
MEETINGS
The following listing gives the main theme for each
week's meeting, and the main buildings or projects that will be discussed. These works will form the basis of the
midterm and final examination, where you will be responsible for a close and
detailed knowledge of the bolded
buildings or urban projects listed below, with their dates, designers, and
special characteristics or circumstances.
The required
class text is G. E. Kidder Smith's Source Book of American Architecture,
the pages of which are indicated as [KS148]. The alternates are
secondary texts: pages in Handlin's American
Architecture are noted as [H231]; pages in Whiffen and Koeper's American Architecture as [WK241]. Those
and other images are on the website for this course: go to www.franktoker.pitt.edu and click on
"HAA1531/Modern American Architecture."
Farther on in this syllabus
are details about the building report will be reporting on in class between now
and 29 November. We'll get to all that in good time. For now, best wishes for
an enjoyable semester!
--Frank Toker
Heights and
fallows in American architecture; the Civil War as the great divide; Frank
Furness and the victory of vocabulary
Texts: most
buildings covered in Kidder Smith; alternate: Handlin, 100-109, 111-122;
Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 211-221, 221-234
The past keeps changing,
and the way we look today at the past, specifically the years right after the
Civil War, is very different from the way the Bauhaus-influenced post-World War
II generation looked at it.
One could argue there have
been about seven "heights" (points of excellence, often even ahead of
Old World) achieved by American architecture, followed by about as many
fallows:
1) the timber-frame house in seventeenth-century New
England
2) Neoclassical America 1800-25; Latrobe &
Jefferson
3) post-Civil War boldness, as in H. H. Richardson
4) grand handling of volumes: the public/private
architecture of McKim, Mead, & White
5) superb handling of materials: Frank Lloyd Wright
above all
6) Mies and the marriage of the Bauhaus to American
capitalism.
7) Possibly today: Gehry and
neo-technologists/neo-expressionists like Steven Holl and Thom Mayne.
Then the fallows:
1a) 1740-1800 fairly timid Georgian and Federal eras
2a) 1825-75 crazed Gothic Revival and bloated
Civil-War monuments
3a) 1885-95 Richardson and followers mired in clichs
4a) 1915-35 pompous classicism as in Supreme Court
Building
5a) 1950s Wrightian clichs
6a) 1960-1990 Miesian clichs.
Or looked at another way, one could argue that there
have been three great "divides" in the development of American
architecture: the American Revolution in the 1770s, around the Civil War in the
1860s, and the acceptance of modernism in the 1930s. The Civil War era (broadly
speaking, 1855-85) was a particular watershed in the development of technology
and a kind of machine aesthetic. Those years--with notable exceptions--could be
termed "So much money, so little art," or "An age of
marvels" (for its two great bridges, and two great monuments)
The pluralism of styles in
the decades just before and after the Civil War showed an America transformed
by industrialization and changes in economics, society, and taste--generally not for the better. Emergence of new
post-Civil War building types: the art academy; new dimensions to the home; the
church; the synagogue; the government building.
Key works:
Arthur Matthews: proposed modification c 1876 to Washington Monument [designed
by Robert Mills 1836, begun 1848, completed 1884; KS216]
Style of Samuel McIntyre, house on Chestnut Street,
Salem MA, c 1800.
Anonymous, Putnam-Balch house, Salem, 1871.
James Renwick: Smithsonian
Institution, Washington DC, 1847-55 [KS214]
Alfred Mullett: State,
War and Navy Building [now Eisenhower Executive Office Building],
Washington, 1871-88 [KS251]
John MacArthur: Philadelphia
City Hall, 1872-1901 [KS255]
Montgomery Meigs: Pension
Building (=National Building Museum), Washington, 1882-87 [KS269]
Ware & Van Brunt: Memorial Hall, Harvard, Cambridge MA, 1870-78 [H102]
Richard Morris Hunt: Griswold House, Newport RI, 1862
Edward T. Potter: Mark
Twain House, Hartford CT, 1874 [KS257]
Frank Furness (1839-1912): Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1872-76; restored
by Hyman Meyers, 1976 [KS252]
Furness: Provident
Trust Company, Philadelphia, 1876 and later expansion [H114]
Furness: University
of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia, 1890
H. H.
Richardson and the victory of syntax
H.H. Richardson (1838-86); enrolled at the cole des
Beaux-Arts in Paris 1860; stayed in Paris until 1876.
Henri Labrouste, Bibliothque Ste.-Genevieve, Paris,
1845-51
Richardson: Grace Church, Medford MA, 1867-68
Richardson: Trinity
Church, Boston, 1872-77 [KS258, 259]
Richardson: Watts
Sherman house, Newport RI, 1875
Richardson: Ames
Gate Lodge, North Easton MA, 1880
compare: the painter Paul
Cezanne (1839-1906)
Richardson: Stoughton
house, Cambridge MA, 1882
Richardson: Glessner
House, Chicago, 1886-1887 [KS277]
Richardson: Ames
Memorial Library, North Easton MA, 1877 [KS263]
Richardson: Sever
Hall, Harvard, Cambridge MA 1878-80
Richardson: Emmanuel
Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh PA, 1883-86
Richardson: Allegheny
County Courthouse & Jail, Pittsburgh, 1884-88 [KS272-273]
Richardson: Marshall
Field Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885--87 [H121]
The new
technology; Chicago and the "tall office building"; Burnham and Root
Texts:
Handlin, 127-131; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 234-264
Developments in cast iron, especially James Bogardus
and Daniel Badger [KS225-227]
Thomas U. Walter: wings
and cast-iron dome of the Capitol, Washington DC, 1858-1865 [KS128]
Charles Ellet, 1000-foot-long suspension bridge,
Wheeling WV, 1849
James Eads: Eads
Bridge, St. Louis MO, 1868-74 [KS242]
Roebling family (John Augustus, Washington, and
Emily): Brooklyn Bridge, New
York City, 1869-1883 [KS246, 247]
Statue of
Liberty, New York, 1870-86: F.
Bartholdi, sculptor; G. Eiffel, engineer; R. M. Hunt, designer of the base
E-E Viollet-le-Duc Entretiens
sur l'architecture English edition as Lectures
on Architecture, ca. 1880
George B. Post: Equitable
Building, New York, 1868--72
Post: Western Union Bldg, New York, 1873--76 [H110]
Richard M. Hunt: Tribune building, New York, 1873--75
[H107]
William LeBaron Jenney (1844-1900): (First) Leiter Building, Chicago,
1879 [WK244]
Jenney: Home
Insurance Building, 1883--85 [WK245]
Daniel Burnham (1846-1912) and John Root (1850-91):
Montauk Building, Chicago, 1882
Burham & Root: Rookery, Chicago, 1886-88 [KS282]
Burham & Root: Monadnock Building for Peter & Shephard Brooks; Chicago,
land bought 1881; designed around 1884; construction 1890-92 [KS292]
Burham & Root, with Charles Atwood: Reliance Building, Chicago: Root
remodeled old building 1889-91; Atwood built new 1895 [KS296-297]
S.S. Beman, town of Pullman IL, 1881
Sullivan
seeks a synthesis
Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) and Louis Henry Sullivan
(1856-1924): Auditorium Building,
Chicago, 1886-89 [KS284]
Adler and Sullivan: Walker Warehouse, Chicago, 1891
Adler and Sullivan: Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1891 [KS294-295]
Adler and Sullivan: Guaranty (originally Prudential) Building, Buffalo, 1896
[KS308-309]
Sullivan: Carson
Pirie Scott store (originally Schlesinger & Meyer), Chicago,
1899-1904 [KS314-315]
Sullivan: Getty Tomb, Chicago, 1890
Sullivan: Wainwright
Tomb, St. Louis MO, 1892 [KS301]
Sullivan: National Farmers' Bank, Owatonna MN, 1907
[KS328]
Sullivan: Peoples Federal Savings & Loan, Sidney,
OH, 1917-18 [KS345]
The return
of classicism; Beaux-Arts and The City Beautiful; McKim, Mead, and White
alternate
texts: Handlin, 132-150; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 268--285
Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, chief
planners: World's Columbian
Exposition, Chicago, 1893 [H135]
Burnham and Charles Atwood: Palace of Fine Arts for the Exposition (=Museum of Science &
Industry), Chicago, 1893 [KS306]
Burnham & others: McMillan Plan for rebuilding Washington, 1902
Burnham & others: Plan of Chicago, 1909
Smithmeyer & Pelz: Library of Congress,
Washington, 1873-97
Burnham: Flatiron Building, New York, 1902
Burnham: Union
Station, Washington, 1903-1908 [KS322-323]
Charles F. McKim (1847-1909), William Mead (1846-1928),
Stanford White (1853-1906)
MMW (designer: Joseph Wells): Villard Houses, New York, 1883-85 [WK269]
MMW: Boston
Public Library, Boston, 1888--95 [KS290-291]
MMW: Pennsylvania
Station, New York City, 1902--10 [H145]
MMW: Isaac Bell house, Newport RI, 1883
MMW: Low
House, Bristol RI, 1887 (destroyed 1956)
Bruce Price: William Kent house, Tuxedo Park NY, 1886
Richard M. Hunt, with Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape
architect: Biltmore, the Vanderbilt house, Asheville NC, 1891-95 [KS299]
Henry Bacon: Lincoln
Memorial, Washington, 1915-22 [KS340-341]
Dissenters:
Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright
Texts:
Handlin, 153-161; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 300--318
F.L. Olmsted (1822-1905) and Calvert Vaux: Plan for Central Park, New York,
1859--1876 [KS232-233]
Olmsted: "Emerald
Necklace" of parks, Boston, 1870s
John Ruskin, The
Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959); grows ups with
Friedrich Froebel "gifts" 1876
Wright: home
and studio, Oak Park Chicago suburb, 1889
Wright: Winslow
house, Riverside IL, 1893
Wright: house for Ladies
Home Journal, 1901
Wright: Willits house, Chicago suburbs, 1902
Wright: Larkin
Building, Buffalo, 1903 [H157]
Wright: Unity
Church, Chicago, 1906-08 [KS326-327]
Wright: Robie
House, Chicago, 1908-10 [KS332-333]
Other
progressives through the First World War in California and elsewhere
Texts:
Handlin, 161-166; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 316--318
(Charles & Henry) Greene and Greene: D.B. Gamble house, Pasadena,
1907--08 [KS329]
Bernard Maybeck (1862-1957): First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley, CA, 1910-12
[KS334]
Maybeck: Fine Arts Palace, Panama Pacific Exhibition,
San Francisco, 1913-1915 [KS338-339]
Simon Rodia: Watts
Towers, Los Angeles, 1921-54 [KS350]
Mary Jane Elizabeth Colter: inns and buildings for National Parks, 1901ff
Irving Gill (1870-1936): La Jolla Woman's Club, San Diego CA, 1913 [KS337]
Frederick Scheibler, Jr.: houses in Pittsburgh PA 1913-23
Modernism
and antimodernism between the two World Wars; Second career of Frank Lloyd
Wright
Texts:
Handlin, 185-231; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 320--333
Louis Curtiss: Boley
Building, Kansas City MO, 1908 [KS331]
Willard Polk: Hallidie
Building, San Francisco, 1917--18 [KS344]
Rudolph Schindler: Lovell Beach house, Newport Beach CA, 1922-26 [H219]
Richard Neutra: Lovell
house, Los Angeles, 1929 [H221]
George Howe and William Lescaze: Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, Philadelphia, 1929-32
[KS370]
Raymond Hood: Daily
News building, NYC, 1929-30 [KS367]
William Van Alen: Chrysler
Building, NYC, 1928--30 [KS364-365]
Shreve, Lamb & Harmon: Empire State building, NYC, 1929-31 [KS368-69]
Raymond Hood, Wallace Harrison, and others (L. Andrew
Reinhard, Henry Hofmister, Benjamin Wistar Morris): Rockefeller Center, NYC, 1931-40 [KS374-375]
Frank Lloyd Wright: St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie apartments (project), NYC, 1929.
Wright: Fallingwater,
the Kaufmann house, near Pittsburgh PA, 1936-37 [KS382-383]
Wright: Johnson
Wax buildings, Racine WI, 1936-47 [KS384-385]
Wright: Taliesin
West, Phoenix AZ, 1938 [KS390-391]
Albert Kahn (1869-1942): Ford River Rouge Plant, nr.
Detroit, 1922
Kahn: Dodge
Truck Plant, Warren MI, 1938
Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, planners; Ingham
& Boyd, architects: Chatham Village,
Pittsburgh PA, 1932--36 [KS376]
Second
conservative reaction: revival styles of the interwar years
Texts:
Handlin, 167-185; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 286--293
Cram, Goodhue, Ferguson: St. Thomas Church, New York, 1906-13 [WK288]
Burrell Hoffmann, Jr.: Villa Viscaya (Deering Estate), Miami, 1916 [WK284]
Julia Morgan: Hearst
Castle/San Simeon; San Simeon CA, 1919-47 [KS347]
F. L. Wright: Barnsdall
house ("Hollyhock House"), Los Angeles CA, 1919-21 [KS346]
Cass Gilbert: Woolworth
Building, New York, 1911-13 [KS336]
Cass Gilbert: U.S.
Supreme Court, Washington, 1935.
Shepley, Coolidge, Bulfinch & Abbot: Harvard
University housing, 1916-30
Perry, Shaw, & Hepburn: Colonial Williamsburg Restoration, Williamsburg VA, 1927-34
[KS55]
Greenfield Village, Dearborn MI, 1933
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue: Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln NE, 1922--32 [KS353]
Raymond Hood & John Howells: Chicago Tribune Tower, Chicago, 1923-25 [KS354]
Charles Klauder: "Cathedral
of Learning," University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, 1925-37
Impact of
European immigrant modernists
Texts:
Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 334--346
Rudolph Schindler: Lovell Beach house, Newport Beach CA, 1922-26 [H219]
Richard Neutra: Lovell
"Health" house, Los Angeles, 1929 [H221]
George Howe and William Lescaze: Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, Philadelphia, 1929-32 [KS370]
[Repeating Schindler, Neutra, and Lescaze here because
they were a bridge to, rather than part of, the "wave" of European
immigrant modernists]
Albert Frey, Aluminaire
House, now Long Island, 1931
Philip Goodwin, Edward Durell Stone: Museum of Modern Art, NYC, 1939
[KS387] (reworked by P. Johnson; C. Pelli; Yoshio Taniguchi 2004)
Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer: Frank House, Pittsburgh, 1938-39
Gropius & Breuer: Aluminum Terrace, New Kensington PA 1941
Mies van der Rohe: IIT campus, Chicago, 1940ff
Neutra: Kaufmann
"Desert" House, Palm Springs CA, 1948
Mies: Farnsworth
House, Plano IL, 1945-50
Le Corbusier: Carpenter
Center, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, 1961-63 [KS470]
Triumph of
the International Style, and Reaction; Wright's Third Career
Texts:
232-261; Handlin, Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 347--361
Pietro Belluschi: Equitable
(=Commonwealth) Building, Portland OR, 1947 [KS397]
Philip Johnson: "Glass House," New Canaan CT, 1949 [H244]
Mies van der Rohe: Lake Shore Drive apartments, Chicago, 1948--51 [KS401]
Wallace Harrison (project chief for Le Corbusier,
Oscar Niermeyer etc.): United Nations
buildings, NYC, 1947-50 [KS398-99]
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM): Lever House, NYC, 1950--52 [KS408]
Mies: Crown
Hall at IIT, Chicago, designed 1950; 1956 [KS422-423]
Mies (with Philip Johnson): Seagram Building, NYC, 1954-58 [KS420-421]
SOM: John
Hancock Center, Chicago, 1966-70 [KS520-521]
Eero Saarinen: John
Deere Company, Moline IL, 1962-64 [KS482-483]
Saarinen: TWA
Terminal at JFK airport, NYC, 1958--62 [KS446-447]
Saarinen: Dulles
Airport, Chantilly VA, 1958-62 [KS448-449]
Saarinen: Memorial
Arch, St. Louis MO, 1962--68 [KS487]
Saarinen: Chapel
and Auditorium, MIT, Cambridge MA, 1953--55 [KS415]
Wright: Price
Tower, Bartlesville OK, 1954 [KS416]
Wright: Guggenheim
Museum, NYC, designed 1943, 1956--59 [KS431]
Wright: Beth
Sholom Synagogue, Philadelphia, 1959 [KS452]
Wright: Marin
County Civic Center, north of San Francisco, 1959--1962 [KS455]
Impact of
Expressionism and Late Beaux-Arts
Texts:
Handlin, 261-267, 268-290; Whiffen and Koeper, pp. 361-433
Wright disciples Goff, Goldberg, Soleri, and Jones:
Bruce Goff, Church in Bartlesville OK, 1956 [another
church KS413]
Bertrand Goldberg: Marina City, Chicago, 1960 [KS462]
Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti,
Cordes Junction AZ, 1970ff [KS562]
E. Fay Jones: Thorncrown
Chapel, Eureka Springs Arkansas, 1979-80 [KS612]
Marcel Breuer: St.
John's Abbey Church, Collegeville MN, 1956-61 [KS434-435]
Breuer: Whitney
Museum, NYC, 1964-66 [KS500-01]
Paul Rudolph: Art
and Architecture Building, Yale University; New Haven CT, 1961--63 [KS472]
Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles: Boston City Hall, 1963-69 [KS494-495]
Louis Kahn and Anne Tyng: Richards Medical Labs, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia PA, 1957-61 [KS438-39]
Kahn: Kimball
Museum, Fort Worth TX, 1969-72 [KS555]
Kahn: Salk
Institute of Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 1964-66 [KS498]
Kahn: Exeter
Academy Library, Exeter NH,
1969--71 [KS552]
Kahn: Center
for British Art and Studies, Yale University; New Haven CT, 1972--77
[KS588-89]
Robert
Venturi: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (written
1962, published 1966); Learning from Las
Vegas (1972)
Venturi, Rauch & Associates: Vanna Venturi House, Chesnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1962-64
[H265]
Venturi: Guild
House, Philadelphia, 1960--65 [KS466]
Johnson and Burgee: Pennzoil Place, Houston, 1973-75 [KS590]
Charles Moore: Kresge
College, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1972-74 [KS587]
Michael Graves: Portland
Public Services building, Portland OR, 1980-82 [KS613]
Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam
Memorial, Washington DC, 1982 [KS618]
Anish Kapor, Cloud
Gate; Jaume Plensa, Crown Fountain;
Frank Gehry, Chicago Symphony Pavilion: all ca 2001, Millennium Park, Chicago
Directions
today: student presentations on
American buildings since 1990.
Might be on
works such as:
--Antoine Predock: American Heritage Center and
University Art Museum, Laramie WO, 1992 [KS631]
--James Ingo Freed for Pei Cobb Freed architects:
Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, 1993 [KS633]
--Peter Eisenman: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus
OH, 1984-89 [KS627]
--Frank Gehry: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain,
1991-97 [H285] or Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003
--Richard Meier, Getty Center, Los Angeles, 1999
--Steven Holl: Simmons Hall, MIT Dormitory, Cambridge
MA, 2001
--works by younger designers like Thom Mayne, Eric
Owen Moss, Robert Mangurian, Craig Hodgetts; or the still younger Greg Lynn,
Michael Maltzan, Neil Denari, Kevin Daly & Chris Genik.
THEME AND OBJECTIVE OF THE COURSE
By the close of the Civil War in 1865 and in the
decades immediately following it was clear that traditional American
architectural values had broken down under a barrage of ornament and imported
European styles. But at the same moment a new American architecture was taking
shape in the skyscrapers of Chicago, expressive of the new wealth of post-Civil
War America, its new social order, and of the new national scale (rather than
the old regional scale) of the American building industry. The next hundred and
forty years would see a succession of brilliant American architects: Furness,
Richardson, Sullivan, Root, and McKim, Mead, and White; Frank Lloyd Wright, the
European immigrants Gropius, Mies, and Neutra; the modernists Saarinen, Kahn,
and Johnson; the post-Moderns and contextualists Venturi, Meier, Graves,
Eisenman, and Gehry; and much younger architects today. At the same time American architects
and planners have had only partial success in solving the problems of city vs. country; architecture as social
welfare; and the concern for national and regional values as expressed in
building. These individual successes and collective problems will constitute
the underlying theme of the course.
In its briefest form, the
"problem" of this course is as follows: the struggle in Early
American architecture was simply to raise its standards, but the struggle in
American architecture after the U.S. became a world power in 1865 was to define
its character and its role in national and international terms.
COURSE INFORMATION
The course text is G. E. Kidder Smith's Source Book of American Architecture
(Princeton Architectural Press, different printings beginning around 2001). You
should begin reading it immediately; we will discuss in detail about one-third
of the buildings in his second half: see page numbers marked KS in the
syllabus. The reserve desk holds a score of supplementary texts for the course,
and many other relevant books are easily available from Frick, Hillman, and
Carnegie libraries.
Office hours are
in my office (balcony of Frick Library reading room), every Tuesday from 9
until 11 a.m.; we can arrange other times if you telephone me at 412.648.2419
or e-mail me at ftoker+@pitt.edu.
Grading is based 30% on each of the two midterms and the
class presentation, and 10% for attendance and participation. This
course follows this Department's statement on academic integrity: "Plagiarizing is an act that violates
the Student Conduct Code, and will not be tolerated in this class. Plagiarized
assignments will result in a failing grade for that assignment"--or in
an F for the term. Note that in
the world of the Internet, plagiarizing has gotten ever more easy: The essays
will be tested in the Turnitin.com software to made certain this is your
original work.
Agreement for use of
Turnitin software: Students agree that by taking this course all required
papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to
Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be
included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for
the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of Turnitin.com page service
is subject to the Usage Policy and Privacy Pledge posted on the Turnitin.com
site.
Composition
of the midterms: Half the midterm
grades will come from the essays that you will pick about a week beforehand and
email to me; and half from Scantron ("fill in the bubbles") tests
that you will take in class. Each Scantron test will carry 27 questions, each
worth 2%, on specific facts about the "key works," terms, and larger
concepts like theoretical issues, writings on architecture, or differences
between the various architectural styles. That means that you can flop on two
questions and still get a full 50%, or 54% if you really know your stuff.
The class
presentation. You will note about
thirty of the key works are not merely bolded
but bolded/underlined. Those
are the works available for your class presentation as part of whatever day to
which that building belongs. Other topics would also be acceptable, if research
resources exist for them. You can give this presentation yourself or with a
partner. A third of your term grade is riding on this presentation, so do not
let it go too long (I will impose no "deadlines": it's up to you). I
will accept the first bid I get for any topic. Time limit is 10 minutes. Format
is PowerPoint: email me your PowerPoint a day before you are presenting, or
bring your flash drive to my office. Bringing a flash drive to class, last
minute, is unacceptable. No text need be written out, but you will need to
bring to class one page for every student (about 33) that will summarize the
main points about the building and list the main bibliography you used.
You can pick one of either
two kinds of presentations. One kind treats "monumental" buildings
1865 through around 1990, as listed in the bolded/underlined
text. But the other kind are newer buildings of the past 20 years (roughly 1990
on). I list some suggestions in the text above. We will have time for about ten
or at the most twelve such presentations on November 29, so if you want to
reserve a slot, do it without delay.
Main
questions to address in your presentation (for simplicity, this assumes you are writing on a single building,
but you can extrapolate for a city, architect, theme etc.)
1) description of the building (architect, city plan,
theme, etc.);
2) history of how it came about;
3) analysis of how it works, what decisions the
architect took, where it fits in its context, etc.;
4) critique of how successful or unsuccessful the
building (city, architect etc.) is.
What is the
"problem" of this building? i.e. what was it about the function,
structure, placement, political importance etc. of this building that makes it
noteworthy? Then recapitulate its
construction history (were there numerous changes in design before or during
construction?), and add a short note of any changes post-construction. Finally, the last third of the
presentation should be an assessment of the accomplishment of this particular
building: where does the building stand in the career of its architect? Or in
the history of that particular building type? Or in the history of whatever city or state it stands in (or
was meant to stand in)? How did it
change the course of modern American architecture, or how might it have
changed it? You need to assess
success or failure in the building, and specify your criteria.
Guidelines for a successful presentation: give it a title that presents a specific point of
view, and make sure the whole presentation embodies a point of view--as any
original piece of scholarship would. Start with a "problem," and keep
referencing the problem throughout. What was it about the function, structure,
placement, political importance etc. of your building (or architect, or city,
or patron, or building type etc.) that makes it noteworthy?
Research To
get these answers, you need to research the building, architect, theme etc. The
Kidder Smith text discusses many of the buildings you might choose, but you'll
need background information, too. (And Kidder Smith's text stops with buildings
around the year 2000.)
BOOKS ON RESERVE
Condit, C.
The Chicago School of Architecture
Eggener, K. American
Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader.
Gifford, D. Literature
of Architecture
Handlin, D.
American Architecture
Jackson, K.T.
Crabgrass Frontier (growth of
suburbs)
Jordy, W.
American buildings and Their
Architects, vol. 3: Progressive and
Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Century
Ibid., and vol 4 Impact
of European Modernism in the mid-20th Century
Poppeliers, JohnWhat
Style is it?
Roth, L. America Builds: Source Documents
Roth, L. Concise History of American Architecture
Scully, V. American
Architecture and Urbanism
Smith, G.E. Kidder Source
Book of American Architecture
Venturi, R.
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture
Whiffen, M.
American Architecture Since 1780:
A Guide to the Styles
Whiffen, M. and Koeper, F. American Architecture
1607--1976 (vol. 2 in paperback American
Architecture 1860--1976)
Wilson, W. H.
The City Beautiful Movement
ADDITIONAL
RELEVANT BOOKS IN FRICK LIBRARY (mainly reference room)
Blumenson, J.
Identifying American Architecture
Clark, C.E.
The American Family Home,
1800-1960
Gowans, A.
Styles and Types of North American
Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression
Handlin, D.
The American House: Architecture
and Society, 1815--1915
Reps, J. The Making of Urban America
Sokol, D.
American Architecture and Art
(guide to research sources)
Smith, G.E. Kidder The Architecture of
the U.S. (3 vols., numerous photos)
Tunnard, C. and Reed, H.H. American Skyline