ARCH2323 Cultural Contexts II
Target Students BSSc2
Course Term 2
Course Type Required
Teacher GHELICHI, Pedram
Through a series of interconnected lectures, this course explores how the study of prototyping—as the search for what architecture could become, not just what it is—can reveal hidden assumptions, ambitions, and uncertainties in both historical and contemporary works. The course looks at these questions from different perspectives, including representation, material agency, error and tolerance, tectonic assembly, typology, experimental practice, and memory. This serves a dual purpose of building essential historical literacy as well as a theoretical foundation for the design studio.
Twelve thematic lectures are arranged in a non-chronological sequence, with six focused on core theoretical topics and four on historical case studies, drawing on both built and unbuilt works by figures such as Jean Prouvé, Archigram, Eladio Dieste, Enric Miralles, and Sverre Fehn and two field trips to buildings in the city and archives. Each lecture sets up a narrative alongside a counternarrative, first outlining dominant and conventional narrative around each theme, then introducing contemporary alternatives for each one. For example, on the theme of representation, students will be introduced to the prevalent and instrumental use of technical drawings as a mere representation for technical execution; and then, they will be introduced to the idea of drawing as a thinking tool through examples by Le Corbusier, Enric Miralles, among other figures. This approach enables students to recognise the conventional narratives while engaging them with contemporary debates and shifts in architectural thinking.
Eventually, this course aims to give students a critical, process-oriented perspective on architectural history, one that values becoming over being, and sees architecture as a continuous process of experimentation, and reflection.
