Advanced Topics in History and Theory of Architecture

Abstract

Advanced Research Methods in the History and Theory of Art and Architecture

Objective

Acquiring insight in the different possible research methods available to PhD-researchers in the fields of the history and theory of art and architecture.

Content

Today, it is still common to think of architecture in terms of individual authors, styles and canonical buildings. Any study following this logic, however, will always miss out on the complexity of a practice embedded in, and actively contributing to, the global process of modernisation. For the factors that have transformed architecture worldwide in the last two hundred years have been less individual figures, formal accomplishments or singular buildings, than new technologies, organisational models and professional alignments. One way of grasping these processes, and by extension better understanding architecture’s central role in the continual unfolding of modernity, is to shift our attention from the discipline’s internal discourse to what buildings are actually made of. In other words, to think of architecture as an assemblage of technical objects—or ‘things’—like elevators, pipes, air conditioning systems, and so on. This doctoral-level course will encourage students to think about buildings in terms of ‘things’ by introducing them to a vast literature on the ontological, epistemological and social politics of objects and matter more in general. Students successfully completing the course will be in a position to read buildings from an object-oriented perspective.

Resources