Modern Architecture I, 1750-1890

Have you ever wondered why College Hall is gigantic and green? Are you intrigued by the notion that the Fine Arts Library was designed as a fusion of a cathedral and a train station? Did you know that Philadelphia is home to some of the most important buildings of nineteenth-century America? This course explores the answers to these questions and many more in its examination of the long nineteenth century as an era of great innovation, experimentation, and revolutionizing change in architecture. In our pursuit we will examine the connection between architecture and society, the emergence of new building types, and the search for a new style. We will also revel in swirling stylistic pluralism, wonder at rapid social and technological change, and try to keep our balance amidst study of this era’s constantly shifting and increasingly complex relationships with the natural world, time, and history. Major architects under consideration include Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Étienne-Louis Boullée, Sir John Soane, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, A.W.N. Pugin, Gottfried Semper, Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Frank Furness, and Henry Hobson Richardson. Architects and architectural movements of this period will be examined through discussion, some lecture, interactive drawing exercises, and examination of primary sources in the architectural archives. We will also journey to buildings on campus and in Center City Philadelphia (during allotted class time) to examine key monuments of this inventive era.