Theory
Contemporary Italian Culture: The 1960's in Italian Cinema
ARCH 317.20 Course Schedule: Tuesdays, 9:00 pm
Prerequisites: ARCH 231/232 or ARCH 531/532 or permission of instructor.
Professor: Carolina Ciampaglia This one-credit course is designed to give an outline of Italian Cinema during the 60's through the films of four of the most representative directors. These years represented for Italy a period of economic growth which resulted in a process of radical transformation of Italian society.
The purpose of this course is to analyze through the seminars how four directors, in their own style, witnessed and registered the changes that were taking place in Italy. The movies portray different aspects of Italian life in a moment of great transition from old to new.
For a historical introduction to the years of “the economic miracle” students are required to read the specific assignment in Ginsborg's text before the seminars. Students may take the seminars for 1 credit by taking the final exam.
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“Other” Modernisms: A Subject Matter for Twentieth-Century History of Architecture
ARCH 338/638.20 Course Schedule: Wednesdays, 3:45 pm - 6:00 pm
Prerequisites: ARCH 231/232 or ARCH 531/532 or permission of instructor.
Professor: Maristella Casciato
Course Overview: The theme of the course “Other” Modernisms proceeds from the awareness that the mainstream historiographic construction of 20th century modernism through its canonic texts and buildings has marginalized or left out entirely, some modern trajectories that are now gaining an unprecedented new legitimacy as the subject matter of revisionist histories. Recent literature has shed light on the differences within orthodox modernism itself, and hence questioned its canonical definitions. In addition, “non-western” contexts from Asia, Africa to South America or to the east of Europe, have been increasingly studied to broaden the limits of modernist production beyond Western Europe and North America, which were hitherto seen as centers of Modernism. Instead of a modernist mainstream, we now talk about a plurality of modernisms both within the global context and within individual societies comprising it.
Course requirements include one paper, approximately 15 pages, which will be presented orally in class, on a topic directly related to the assigned readings. A draft of this paper should be given to the instructor a week before the presentation in class. The student will be responsible for leading the discussion after presentation. The final written version of this paper is due by December 12, 2007.
The class structure will emphasis will be on close textual readings of primary texts, which will be discussed in seminar format.
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Visual Representation
Introduction to Photography
ARCH 459/659.20 Course Schedule: Tuesdays, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Prerequisites: ARCH 151/152, ARCH 551/552, or permission of instructor.
Professor: Liana Miuccio 
Course Description: Rome is a visual feast for photographers. In this course, students will learn the art of photography while documenting the Eternal City’s urban landscape. The technical component of the course consists of mastering camera operation, exposure and digital input and output. Students will gain an understanding of the aesthetic possibilities of photography through weekly assignments, lectures on important photographers, photo field trips in Rome and visits to contemporary photo exhibits. By the conclusion of the course, students will have produced a visual diary of their European experience. Basic bibliography for the course includes the following books: On Photography, The Photograph, About Looking, Camera Lucida.
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History of Architecture and Urban Development
Aspects of Urban Design, Architecture, and Art in Renaissance and Baroque Rome
ARCH 399.20 Course Schedule: Wednesdays, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Prerequisites: ARCH 181/182 or ARCH 581/582
Professor: Jeffrey Blanchard
Course Description: This course will focus principally upon the Renaissance and Baroque phases of Rome’s history (15th-18th centuries). However, the first class sessions will survey the city’s growth and structure from its origins to the present, and throughout the course we will often turn our attention to those earlier and later events, without an understanding of which the Renaissance and Baroque developments would be only partially intelligible.
The history of architecture in Rome will be treated more thoroughly and systematically than the arts of painting and sculpture, but these latter topics will occasionally be our main focus, and will often be a secondary one.
While the overall organization of the syllabus is essentially a chronological one, each lecture tends to reflect other criteria of selection as well: topographic (a particular zone of the city); typological (a particular architectural type, e.g. the 16th century palazzo); monographic (the work of a single artist).
Class will sometimes meet at Palazzo Lazzaroni for an introductory lecture, but often we will have our appointment “on site” and will utilize photocopied materials in the course handbook to provide those crucial visual documents needed to understand our objects of study.
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The Topography and Urban History of Rome in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
ARCH 399.21 Course Schedule: Fridays, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Prerequisites: ARCH 181/182 or ARCH 581/582
Professor: Jan Gadeyne
Course Description: Rome is a prisoner of its past. Everywhere you are or whatever you look at confronts you with the almost hirty centuries of urban and architectural history of the city. This course intends to reconstruct the urban history of Rome from its origins through the Middle Ages (10th. cent. BC-12th. cent. AD). The purpose of this course will be to discover the layers of Rome, combining archeology with literature, architecture and urban history with art history. We will aim at a thorough and direct knowledge of the Roman and Medieval urban landscape and the way this landscape has sometimes survived until today. Special attention will be given to the Roman and Medieval buildingtypology, both private and public, and the development of the urban infrastructure (streetsystem, watersupply, fortifications, etc.). Strong emphasis will be place upon continuity, use/reuse and transformation of buildings and spaces, etc. Every week one or two different “regions” will be explored, that are typical for a particular moment of the urban history. Visits to sites outside Rome will be used to address the issue of urban history in Italy in antiquity and the middle ages.
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