Syllabus 2007/2008 ATE010

Syllabus academic year 2007/2008

THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE A

ATE010

Higher education credits: 7,5. Grading scale: UG. Level: G1 (First level). Language of instruction: The course will be given in Swedish. ATE010 overlap following cours/es: ATEA01 och ATEA05. Compulsory for: A1. Course coordinator: Professor Tomas Wikström Professor Lars-Henrik Ståhl, Mats.Hultman@arkitektur.lth.se och Univ. lecturer Mats Hultman Research assistant Mattias Kärrholm, Mattias.Karrholm@arkitektur.lth.se, Inst för arkitektur och byggd miljö. Assessment: The individual student can either Pass or Fail. To achieve the former he or she must have submitted an essay that wins approval, presented it at one seminar and, at another, formally opposed another essay in a way that is approved. In addition he or she shall have at least an eighty per cent attendance at seminars and lectures and have participated actively in these seminars. Further information: This course is given in alternating years for first- and second-year students and is one of two courses in the theory of architecture.

Aim
The course aims to increase each students ability to reflect critically on questions to do with architecture, so as to enable him or her to acquire an analytical attitude to the profession of architecture. This is done primarily by training each student to read, write and speak about architecture in ways that are constructive and aware of relevant theories, and lead to a possession of a conceptual apparatus that would let him or her actively and critically take part in contemporary debates and academic research. The student shall also be exercised in ways that allow him or her independently to argue, orally and in writing, on architectural themes. The course also aims to introduce the theory of architecture as a whole.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

with reference to a given text or a specific architectural context, define and identify questions to do with architectural theory and relate them to their contemporary and/or historical context(s).

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

from the point of view of architectural theory, independently and simply to analyse, orally and in writing, a specific work of architecture or a text on such a subject.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

exhibit an ability to assess in a well-developed way the qualities of architecture, and formulate meta-theoretical questions having to do with architecture and its profession.

Contents
The course includes a fundamental discussion of concepts and traditions that are central to architectural analysis and creation. It also introduces architectural theory and its history, mainly by reference to research about such theory.

The course comprises lectures, seminars, individual study and essay writing. The student is offered opportunities to discuss in seminars theories and the production of knowledge of significance to the performance of the work of an architect. In writing his or her essay, and in the preparatory reading, the student is offered an opportunity to address questions of knowledge and discuss those that have to do with architectural creation; in the course of at least two seminars he or she both writes and presents an essay and opposes another.

Teaching in general, and these small seminar groups, have as their general aim to further the development of students individually.

Literature
Hearn, F., Ideas that Shaped Buildings, The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 2003.
Some shorter texts can be added during the course.