Readings

Required Books

[AC] = Buy at Amazon Colquhoun, Alan. Modern Architecture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780192842268.

[KF] = Buy at Amazon Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1992. ISBN: 9780500202579.

Buy at MIT Press [UC] = Buy at Amazon Conrads, Ulrich. Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970. ISBN: 9780262030397.

Recommended Books

Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. Architectural Press, 1946.

Buy at MIT Press [RB] = Buy at Amazon Banham, Reyner. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980. ISBN: 9780262520584.

Buy at Amazon Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1977. ISBN: 9780870702815.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780262720069.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Hays, Michael K. Architecture Theory Since 1968. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262581882.

Buy at Amazon ———. Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal for Ideas and Criticism in Architecture, 1973-1984. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. ISBN: 9781568981536.

[JO] = Buy at Amazon Ockman, Joan. Architecture Culture, 1943-1968. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1993. ISBN: 9780847815227.

LEC # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction No readings
2 Louis Sullivan: Adler and Sullivan

Required

[AC] "Organicism versus Classicism: Chicago 1890-1910." Pp. 35-50.

[KF] "Adler and Sullivan, the Auditorium and the High Rise, 1886-95." Chapter 2, pp. 51-56.

Sullivan, Louis H., "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered." Lippincott Magazine, 1896. (PDF)


Recommended

Buy at Amazon Morrison, Hugh. "Youth and Early Training," "Auditorium Building," "Giving Form to the Skyscraper," and "Sullivan's Architectural Theory." Pp. 1-29, 56-84, 111-146, and 195-224 in Louis Sullivan, Prophet of Modern Architecture. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998. ISBN: 9780393730234.

Buy at Amazon Wright, Frank Lloyd. "Book Three: Foreground." Genius and the Mobocracy. New York, NY: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1949. ISBN: 9780818000225.

3 Frank Lloyd Wright

Required

[AC] "Organicism versus Classicism: Chicago 1890-1910." Pp. 51-55.

[KF] "Frank Lloyd Wright and the Myth of the Prairie, 1890-1916." Pp. 57-63 and "Frank Lloyd Wright and the Disappearing City." Pp. 187-191.

[UC] "Organic Architecture." Pp. 25, 124-125.

[JO] Read pp. 31-41.

Buy at Amazon Wright, Frank Lloyd. "In Order to Be Modern, 1930." Pp. 337-338 in Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, Vol. 1. Edited by Bruce Brooks Pfieffer. ISBN: 9780847815463.


Recommended

Buy at Amazon Wright, Frank Lloyd. "In the Logic of Contemporary Architecture," and "The Art and Craft of the Machine, 1901." Pp. 339-341 and 58-69 in Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, Vol. 1. Edited by Bruce Brooks Pfieffer. ISBN: 9780847815463.

Buy at Amazon Scully, Vincent. Frank Lloyd Wright: Masters of World Architecture. New York, NY: George Braziller, 1960, pp. 11-32. ISBN: 9780807602218.

4 Adolf Loos, Peter Behrens and the German Werkbund

[AC] Pp. 57-85

[UC] Pp. 19-24; 26-48

[KF] "Adolf Loos and the Crisis of Culture 1896-1931." Pp. 90-95 and "The Deutsche Werkbund 1898-1927." Pp. 109-115.

[RB] "Adolf Loos and the Problem of Ornament." Pp. 88-97

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Sarnitz, August. "Introduction" and "The Poor Little Rich Man." Pp. 1-21 in Adolf Loos:1870-1933: Architect, Cultural Critic, Dandy. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2003. ISBN: 9783822827727.

Buy at Amazon Campbell, Joan. "Introduction." Pp. 3-8 in The German Werkbund: the Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. ISBN: 9780691052502.

5 De Stijl and Schrader Schroder house

Required

[AC] Pp. 109-120

[UC] Pp. 39-40;64-67; and 78-80

[KF] Chapter 16, pp. 142-148

[RB] "De Stijl: The International Phase." Pp.185-200

 

Recommended

[RB] "De Stijl: The Dutch Phase." Pp.148-162

Yve-Alain, Bois. "Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture." Assemblage 4 (1987): 102-130.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Overy, Paul, and Lenneke Buller, "Interview with Truus Schroder." Pp. 42-103 in The Rietveld Schroder House. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780262150330.

6 Walter Gropius: Bauhaus and Harvard

Required

[AC] Pp. 159-170

[UC] Pp.44-53; 69-70; 95-97

[KF] Pp. 123-141

Gropius, Walter. "The Bauhaus: Crafts or Industry?" Journal of Architectural Education 18, no. 2 (1963): 31-32.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Wingler, Hans Maria. Read pp. 136-137 in The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ISBN: 9780262730471.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Giedion, Sigfried. Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork. New York, NY: Reinhold Publishing, 1954, pp. 3-44.

Pearlman, Jill. "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the 'Harvard Bauhaus'." The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 56, no. 4 (1997): 452-477.

Pehnt, Wolfgang. "Gropius the Romantic." The Art Bulletin 53, no. 3 (1971): 379-392.

Burchard, Charles. "Gropius at Harvard." Journal of Architectural Education 14, no. 2 (1959): 23-25.

7 Visit Gropius House, Lincoln, MA No readings
8

Le Corbusier buildings and cities

Documentary: La Tourette

Required

[AC] Pp. 137-157; 209-216

[UC] Pp. 59-62; 89-94; 99-101

[KF] Chapter 17, pp. 149-160; and chapter 20, pp. 224-230

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Brooks, H. Allen. "Childhood and Early Schooling, 1887-1902." Pp. 3-21 in Le Corbusier's Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780226075822.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Von Moos, Stanislaus. "Urbanism." Pp. 187-238 in Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780262720083.

9

Mies van der Rohe: Berlin and America, less is more

Documentary: Mies

Required

[AC] Pp. 170-181; 231-246

[KF] Chapter 18, pp. 161-166; and chapter 26, pp. 231-237

[UC] Pp.74-75; 81-82; 102; 123; 154

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Schultz, Franz. "Weimar at the Flood," and "America: The Triumph of Steel and Glass." Pp. 131-173 and 239-283 in Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226740607.

Buy at Amazon Lambert, Phyllis. "Space and Structure," and "The Seagram Building." Pp. 332-353 and 390-406 in Mies in America. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. ISBN: 9780920785690.

10 Philip Johnson and the International Style of 1932

Required

[AC] Pp. 231-247

[KF] Pp. 238-261

Buy at Amazon Hitchcock, Henry R., and Philip Johnson. The International Style: Architecture Since 1922. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1932, pp. 11-21, 35-77.

Buy at Amazon Blake, Peter. "Introduction." Pp. 9-22 in Philip Johnson. Germany: Birkhauser Basel, 1996. ISBN: 9783764353933.

 

Recommended

Hitchcock, H. Russell. "Twenty Years after International Style." Pp. 137-148 in [JO].

Matthews, Henry. "The Promotion of Modern Architecture by the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s." Journal of Design History 7, no. 1 (1994): 43-59

Buy at Amazon Schultz, Franz. "MoMA, Russell, and the New Style," and "Barr Again, MoMA again, Mies Again." Pp. 58-86 and 171-198 in Philip Johnson: Life and Works. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226740584.

11 Alvar Aalto

Required

[AC] Pp. 193-207

[KF] Chapter 22, pp. 192-202

Aalto, Alvar. "The Architects Conscience." Pp. 249-252 in [JO].

Buy at Amazon Schildt, Goran. Alvar Aalto. The Early Years. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1984, pp. 15-16. ISBN: 9780847805310.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Pallasmaa, Juhani. (1998). "Alvar Aalto: Towards a Synthetic Functionalism." In Alvar Aalto: Between Humanism and Materialism. New York, NY: Abrams, 1998, pp. 21-44. ISBN: 9780810961838.

Buy at Amazon Schildt, Goran. "Return to America," and "Aalto at MIT." Pp. 96-107 and 117-129 in Alvar Aalto: The Mature Years. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1991. ISBN: 9780847813292.

12 Louis Kahn

Required

[AC] Pp. 248-254

[KF] Chapter 27, pp.238-246

Kahn, Louis. "Monumentality." Pp. 47-54 in [JO].

Buy at Amazon Tyng, Anne G. Louis Kahn to Anne Tyng: The Rome Letters 1953-1954. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1997, pp. 61-79. ISBN: 9780847820092.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Twombly, Robert C. "Form and Design." In Louis Kahn: Essential Texts. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2003, pp. 62-74. ISBN: 9780393731132.

Buy at Amazon Goldhagen, Sarah W. "Struggling for a New Idiom: the Trenton Jewish Community Center and Bathhouse, and the Philadelphia Civic Center Plan." In Louis Kahn's Situated Modernism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 102-111. ISBN: 9780300077865.

Burton, Joseph. "Notes from volume Zero: Louis Khan and the Language of God." Perspecta 20 (1983): 69-90.

Anderson, Stanford. "Public Institutions: Louis I. Kahn's Readings of Volume Zero." Journal of Architectural Education 49, no. 1 (1995): 10-21.

13 Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph

Required

Tamko, Allan. "Search for Form: Expression and Overexpression." Pp. 33-48 in Eero Saarinen. 1962.

Buy at Amazon Monk, Anthony. "Pen Portraits." In The Art and Architecture of Paul Rudolph. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1999, pp. 20-25. ISBN: 9780471997788.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Merkel, Jayne. Eero Saarinen. London, UK: Phaidon Press, 2005, pp. 35-81. ISBN: 9780714842776.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Rohan, Timothy M. "The Dangers of Eclecticism: Paul Rudolph's Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley." In Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar American Culture. Edited by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 191-214. ISBN: 9780262072083.

14 Case-study house program

Required

[AC] Pp. 233-237

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Smith, Elizabeth. "Introduction." In Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262692137.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon McCoy, Esther. "Art and Architecture: Case Study Houses." Pp. 15-39 in Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. Edited by Elizabeth Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262692137.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Hayden, Dolores. "Model Houses for the Millions." Pp. 197-209 in Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. Edited by Elizabeth Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262692137.

 

Recommended

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Smith, Elizabeth. "Art and Architecture and the Los Angeles Vanguard." Pp. 145-165 in Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262692137.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Isenstadt, Sandy. "Richard Neutra and the Psychology of Architectural Consumption." Pp. 97-117 in Anxious Modernisms: Experimentations in Postwar American Culture. Edited by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262571654.

15 Field trip to Yale, overnight stay with Sunday trip to Exeter Library No readings
16 Urbanism CIAM and Team X

Required

[AC] Pp.217-229

[KF] Chapter 3, pp. 269-279

[UC] "CIAM 1, La Sarraz Declaration." Pp.109-113

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Frampton, Kenneth. "Forward." In The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. By Eric Mumford. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262632638.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Mumford, Eric. "After CIAM." Pp. 267-274 in The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. By Eric Mumford. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262632638.

 

Recommended

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Mumford, Eric. "CIAM 1," and "Team X and CIAM 10, Dubrovnik, 1956." Pp. 9-27 and 238-265 in The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. By Eric Mumford. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262632638.

17 Aldo Van Eyck

Required

[KF] Pp. 271-279

Buy at Amazon Mumford, Eric. Hertzberger, Herman. "The Mechanism of the Twentieth Century and the Architecture of Aldo Van Eyck." Pp. 7-27 in Aldo Van Eyck. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Stichting Wonen/Van Loghum Slaterus. 1982. ISBN: 9789060017616.

18 James Stirling

Required

[KF] Chapter 2, pp. 262-268

Buy at Amazon Stirling, James. "The Functional Tradition and Expression," and "Methods of Expression and Materials." Pp. 78-87 and 125-131 in Stirling: Writing on Architecture. Edited by Robert Maxwell. Milan, Italy: Skira, 1998. ISBN: 9788881183234.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Stirling, James. "Afterthoughts on the Flats at Ham Common," "An Architect's Approach to Architecture," "Anti-Structure," and "James Stirling and Michael Dennis. NOtes from an Informal Discussion." Pp. 73-77; 88-109; 110-123; and 210-223 in Stirling: Writing on Architecture. Edited by Robert Maxwell. Milan, Italy: Skira, 1998. ISBN: 9788881183234.

19 Aldo Rossi and Carlo Scarpa

Required

[KF] Pp. 294-295

Buy at Amazon Scully, Vincent. "The Ends of the Century Finds a Poet." Pp. 12-13 in Aldo Rossi: Buildings and Projects. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1991. 12-13. ISBN: 9780847804993.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. Pp. 13-27. ISBN: 9780262680431.

Zambonini, Giuseppe. "Process and Theme in the Work of Carlo Scarpa." Perspecta 20 (1983): 21-42.

 

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Moneo, Rafael. "Aldo Rossi: The Idea of Architecture and the Modena Cemetary." Pp. 105-134 in Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal for ideas and Criticism in Architecture, 1973-1984. Edited by Michael K. Hays. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. ISBN: 9781568981536.

Dal Co, Francesco. "The Architecture of Carlo Scarpa." Pp. 24-72 in Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Works. 1985.

20 Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier

Required

Buy at Amazon Rowe, Colin. "Introduction." Pp. 3-8 in Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier. Edited by Peter Eisenman. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780195197945.

Buy at Amazon Johnson, Philip. "Post Script." Pp. 137-138 in Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier. Edited by Peter Eisenman. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780195197945.

 

Recommended

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Rowe, Colin. "Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal." Pp. 159-182 in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780262680370.

Rowe, Colin, and Robert Slutsky. "Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal, part 2." Pp. 205-225 in [JO].

21 Post Modernism: Less is a bore

Required

Buy at Amazon Harvey, David. "Postmodernism in the City: Architecture and Urban Design." Pp. 66-98 in The Condition of Postmodernity. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991. ISBN: 9780631162940.

Buy at Amazon Jencks, Charles. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1977, pp. 9-37; 39-63. ISBN: 9780847801671.

Buy at Amazon Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2002, pp. 9-55. ISBN: 9780870702822.

 

Recommended

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour. "Part II: Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed." Pp. 87-163 in Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780262720069.

22 Deconstructivist architecture

Required

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Wigley, Mark. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780262731140.

———. "Postmortem Architecture: The Taste of Derrida." Perspecta 23 (1987): 156-72.

23

Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry

Documentary: Sketches of Frank Gehry

Required

Koolhaas, Rem. "Junk Space." A+U May 2000 Special issue OMA@work, 16-24.

———. "Bigness & Velocity." A+U May 2000 Special issue OMA@work, 196-208.

Lucan, Jacques. OMA – Rem Koolhaas: Architecture 1970-1990 (1991): 8-31.

24 Suburbia, sprawl, Congress for New Urbanism, Duany Plater-Zyberk

Required

Buy at Amazon Bressi, Todd. The Seaside Debates: A Critique of the New Urbanism. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2002, pp. 27-58. ISBN: 9780847823451.

Buy at Amazon Mohney, David. "Interview with Andres Duany," and "Interview with Elizabeth Plater-Zyber." Pp. 62-85 in Seaside: Making a Town in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780910413268.

Love, Tim. "Ideology vs. Pragmatism in New Urbanism." Constructs, Yale School of Architecture, Fall 2008.

Buy at Amazon Duany, Andres. "The Devil is in the Details" and "The House that Sprawl Built." Chapters 2 and 3 in Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York, NY: North Point Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780865476066.

 

Recommended

Anderson, Stanford. "The 'New Empiricism-Bay Region Axis': Kay Fisker and Postwar Debates on Functionalism, Regionalism, and Monumentality." Journal of Architectural Education 50, no. 3 (1997): 197-207.

25 William McDonough, Green building practices

Required

Buy at Amazon McDonough, William, and Michael Baaungart. "Waste Equals Food." Pp. 92-118 in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things. New York, NY: North Point Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780865475878.

"Calling Mr. Green." New York Times Magazine, May 20, 2007.

26 Final review exhibition