ARTH 262
Modern Architecture Fall 2024
Division I

A century ago, the Modern Movement promised the most sweeping cultural transformation since the Renaissance. Architecture was only one lobe of a comprehensive movement that embraced literature and painting, music and theater, all aspiring to the same radical emancipation from traditional form and structures of authority. What happened? How and why did modern architecture abandon its utopian vision? Students will explore the major developments in Western architecture from 1900 to the present, and become familiar with its major figures: Loos, Wright, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Aalto, Kahn, Venturi, Gehry, Hadid, and others. Students will learn a variety of skills as they design a 1000-square foot vacation house and present it to the class in the form of a model and set of drawings at quarter-inch scale.