This two-semester course is an introduction to the history of architecture from the Second Industrial Revolution in the 1850s to the Oil Crisis in the 1970s in Europe. Students will be able to identify the “things”—technical objects and ensembles—that transformed architecture, and to relate them to the technical, scientific, and cultural concerns that introduced them as key features of modernity.

This two-semester lecture course introduction on the history of architecture focuses on "things of modernity" -elements, buildings, and networks from the Second Industrial Revolution of the 1850s to the oil crisis of the 1970s in Europe that changed architecture. We will consider how the technical, scientific and cultural significance of these "Things" makes them key features of modernity.