UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, SCHOOL OF ART, CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT
BA (HONS) HISTORY OF ART
Dr
Richard Williams
Course
Outlines and Bibliographies
Future Curriculum Developments
Art as Process 1960-2000
This
Honours level course was first taught in the autumn of 2001, and analysed the
challenges to modernist art practice through sculpture and performance art,
particularly in the USA. The metaphor of 'process' signified an emphasis on art
practice rather than a finished product. This was the first course taught by
Richard Williams in which Latin American material began to make an appearance.
This happened in three ways: (1) the introduction of texts such as Augusto
Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed into
the reading list (2) presentation of process-orientated work by Lygia Clark,
Lygia Pape, Helio Oiticica and others (3) the use of Brasília as a reference
point for modernism. About this last point, RW had visited Brasília just prior
to teaching the course, and used the images taken there as a means of
illustrating concretely ideas of modernist purity and rationalism for a student
body whose familiarity with modernism was limited. Brasília was not written
into the course material, so the presentation was done informally in a seminar
by RW; it proved a great success. Brasília provides only a partial illustration
of modernism, but it is a very large and important one. It also was extremely
clear in its rhetoric of monumentality, of symbolism, of purity and clarity -
in other words, it is a highly determined place, even more so now that it has
been recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site, and change of the central city
is now very difficult. The images of this highly determinate place were
contrasted with images of the highly indeterminate
art and settings of the work covered in the course. Brasília was therefore a
point of reference here. Its use made clear that it was a philosophical
position as much as a city, and that the artworks covered in the course ought
to be seen in opposition to it, as much as simply another in a range of formal
possibilities. In general terms, Brasília was recovered as an important case in
the history of modern forms, rather than treated as some exotic
aberration.
High and Low
in Modern Art
This
was a lecture course for second year students lasting one term and comprising
ten lectures of one hour each. It introduced issues around the interaction
between fine art and popular culture in the twentieth century, as well as fine
art and what might be termed the scatological. The Latin American material
introduced in this course was, as above, a reference point for modernism:
Brasília was used as a case study to illustrate ideas of modernist purity, how
in other words the modernist city was designed as a place of pure form
ideologically situated above the everyday. Texts used in conjunction with the
images of Brasília included writings by Le Corbusier on the city.
COURSE
OUTLINES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES
THE
CONTEMPORARY CITY
18
x 1 hour lectures
x
2 hour seminars
HONOURS
(YEARS 3-4) COURSE OPTION 2003-4
This
is a course about the city as an aesthetic object in contemporary thought. Its
sources are the body of ideas that currently surround the city in architectural
discourse and cultural theory. While its reference points are extremely wide,
the course aims to show a consistent international body of thinking around the
nature of the meaning of the city, its form, and the relationship between the
two.
'Contemporary'
is defined loosely: the key architectural cases discussed come from the past
thirty years, but much of the theory is older but still in use, such as the
Frankfurt School theories of city life from the early twentieth century. The
course therefore looks at Benjamin, Simmel, and Kracauer. 'City' is defined in
broad terms: I mean less the city as a built form, than an idea. Sometimes the
city actually exists as a material form, sometimes as an architectural fantasy,
sometimes an artistic image, or a sometimes as film. That said, actual cities
repeatedly appear throughout this course in the writings of different people:
Los Angeles in Banham, Davis, Jameson and Venturi; Paris in Benjamin,
Baudrillard and Barthes; New York in writers as different as Jane Jacobs and
Robert Smithson; London in Ballard and Rogers. The majority of these cities are
western, and the literature is dominated by books and journals published in the
US and Europe. But it inserts material from three important Latin American
cities, Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and México City in the belief that in these
places are integral to an international discourse about the contemporary city.
:
Programme
·
the modernist city: modernist utopianism from Le Corbusier
to Brasília - the image of modernity in Europe, Latin America and England
·
The anxious city: fear, anxiety and dread in the city - From
Freud and Simmel to Mike Davis - the modernist city and alienation - the
experience of Brasília
·
the museum in the city and the city as museum - the museum as regeneration tool - the new
forms of museums - museum manners - Bilbao, Liverpool
·
the artist in the city - representing the city and being in
it artistically - New York in the 1960s, London in the 1990s - the artist as
flaneur or dandy
·
the city of resistance
- challenges to the bourgeois city - the Brazilian favela, the Peruvian barriada
as alternative forms of settlement
·
the bourgeois city - the contemporary reassertion of the
public realm - the theories of Jane Jacobs, Richard Sennett, Richard Rogers,
and Prince Charles - regressive utopias - Poundbury and Celebration
·
the postmodern city - edge and periphery - façade and
function - Jencks, Jameson, Venturi - Los Angeles and México City
·
questions of identity - the concept of 'critical regionalism' - modernisation with
local characteristics in southern Europe and Latin America - 'critical regionalism' as a means of
cultural resistance
·
the city on film - Paris and New York, Los Angeles and
México City.
Essay
questions
1.
How has the psychological concept of anxiety been used in respect of the modern
city?
2.
To what extent does Brasília illustrate the urban theory of Le Corbusier?
3.
Compare Mathias Goeritz's Satellite City
Towers in México City with any public sculpture by Richard Serra.
4.
Discuss the concept of 'critical
regionalism' with reference to the new architecture of Barcelona
5.
Discuss either the representation of Los Angeles in the film Blade Runner (1984) or México City in
the film Amores Perros (2000).
6.
'The western interest shown the Latin American shanty town has always been from
the point of view of the tourist - privileged, and essentially distant' -
discuss.
7.
Compare and contrast the urban theories of Richard Rogers with those of Prince
Charles.
8.
Analyse the recent reconstruction of London's Trafalgar Square.
9.
How does the idea of the city differ in western and non-western contexts? Give
specific examples.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marc
Augé, Non-places: an Introduction to the
Anthropology of Supermodernity trans. John Howe, London: Verso, 1995.
L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui (1962) special edition on Oscar Niemeyer, 171.
Baird,
G. (1996), The Space of Appearance, Cambridge (Mass.) and
London: MIT Press.
Banham, R. (1972) Los Angeles: The architecture of four ecologies, London, Penguin,
1972
Barragán,
L. (1992) Amando Salas Portugal
photographs of the architecture of Luis Barragán, New York: Rizzoli
Barragán,
L. (1979) House and Atélier for Luis
Barragán, Tokyo: A.D.T.
Battcock,
G. (ed.) Minimal Art: a Critical
Anthology with an introduction
Benjamin, W. (2000) The Arcades Project trans. Howard Eiland
and Kevin McLaughlin, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
Berman,
M. (1983) All that is Solid Melts into
Air, London: Verso.
Boone,
C. (1995), Review of Latin American
Cities by Alan Gilbert, Cities,
12, 2: 119-120.
Braga,
A. da Costa and Falcão, F. A. R. (1997) Guia
de Urbanismo, Arquitectura e Arte de Brasília, Brasília: Fundação Athos
Bulcão.
Brett,
G. (ed.) (1990) Transcontinental: an
Investigation of Reality. Nine Latin
American Artists, London: Verso.
Burri,
R. (2001) Luis Barragán: The Quiet
Revolution, London: Phaidon.
Cavalcanti,
L. (2001) Quando Brasil era Moderno: Guia
de Arquitectura 1928-1960, Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano
Centro
de Arquitectura e Urbanismo do Rio de Janeiro (2000) Guia da Arquitectura Moderna no Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro:
Casa da Palavra.
Certeau,
M. de (1984), The Practice of Everyday
Life, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Colomina,
B.(ed.) (1992), Sexuality and Space,
Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.
Davis, M. (1990) City of Quartz, London: Verso.
Davis, M. (1999) The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster,
London: Picador.
Ellin,
N. (1996) Postmodern Urbanism,
Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
Engels,
F. (1993) The Condition of the Working
Class in England ed. David McLellan,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Epstein,
D. G. (1973) Brasilia, Plan and Reality -
A Study of Planned and Spontaneous Urban Development, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Evanson,
N. (1973) “Two Brazilian Capitals”, New Haven and London: Yale University
Press.
Frampton, K. (1983) 'Towards a Critical
Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance' in Foster, H. (ed.),
The anti-aesthetic: essays on postmodern
culture, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1983, pp. 16-30.
Frampton,
K. (1992) Modern Architecture: A Critical
History, London and New York: Thames and Hudson.
Frampton,
K. (2001) Le Corbusier, London:
Thames and Hudson.
Fraser,
V. (2000) Building the New World: Studies
in the Architecture of Latin America 1930-1960, London: Verso.
Gautherot,
M. (1966) Brasília, New York:
Doubleday.
Gilbert,
A., Latin American Cities, Latin
American Bureau, London, 1995
Gilloch,
G. (2002) Walter Benjamin: Critical
Constellations, London: Polity.
Glancey,
J. (2001) 'Cowboy Builder', Guardian,
19 February.
Glancey,
J. (2001) London: Bread and Circuses,
London: Verso.
Glendinning,
M. and Muthesius, S. (1994) Tower Block,
New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Habermas, J. (1991), The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere: an Inquiry into the Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press.
Hall, P. (1996) Cities of Tomorrow, Oxford: Blackwell.
Hall, P. (1999) Cities in Civilization, London, Phoenix.
Harrison, C. and Wood, P. (eds.) (1992)
Art in Theory 1900-1990, Oxford:
Blackwell.
Heynen, H. (1999) Architecture and Modernity: A Critique, Cambridge (Mass.) and
London: MIT Press.
Holston,
J. (1989) The Modernist City: An
Anthropological Critique of Brasília, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Holston,
J. (1996) ‘Spaces of Insurgent
Citizenship’, Architectural Design,
66, 11-12, November-December: 54-9
Hughes,
J. and Sadler, S. (eds. 2000) Non-Plan:
Essays in Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism,
Oxford: Architectural Press. Irving, M. (2002) 'Growing Pains', Blueprint, December: 36-8.
Jacobs, J. (2000) The Death and Life of Great American Cities , London, Pimlico.
Jencks, C (1985) Modern Movements in Architecture (2nd edition), London:
Penguin.
Leach, N. (ed.) (1997) Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in
Cultural Theory, London: Routledge.
Leach,
N. (ed.) 2002) The Hieroglyphics of
Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis, London: Routledge.
LeGates,
R.T. and F. Stout (eds.) (1996), The City
Reader, Routledge: London.
Lynch,
K. (1961) The Image of the City,
Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Martínez,
A. R. (1996) Luis Barragán: México's
Modern Master, New York: Monacelli.
Miles,
M., Hall, T. and Borden, I. (eds.) (2000) The
City Cultures Reader , London: Routledge.
Mumford,
L. (1961) The City in History,
London: Pelican.
Murphy,
D. (2001) 'Emotional Scenes', Guardian,
17 February.
Rispa,
R. (ed.) (1996) Luis Barragán : the
Complete Works, London: Thames and Hudson
Niemeyer,
O (2000) Minha Arquitectura, Rio de
Janeiro: Editora Revan.
Niemeyer,
O. (2000) The Curves of Time, London:
Phaidon.
Pawley,
M. (1998) Terminal Architecture,
London: Reaktion Books.
Roca,
M. A. (1995) The Architecture of Latin
America, London: Academy Editions.
Rogers, R. and Fisher, M. (1992) A New London, London: Penguin.
Rogers, R. (1997) Cities for a Small Planet, London: Faber and Faber.
Rogers, R. with Power, A. (2000) Cities for a Small Country, London:
Faber and Faber.
Rowe,
C. and Koetter, F. (1978) Collage City,
Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Rowe,
P. G. (1997) Civic Realism, Cambridge
(Mass.): MIT Press.
Rykwert,
J. (2000) The Seduction of Place, London.
Sennett, R. (1986), The Fall of Public Man, London, Faber
and Faber, 1986
Scott,
A. J. and Soja E. (eds.) (1996), The
City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century,
University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.
Staübli,
W. (1966) Brasília, London: Leonard
Hill Books, 1966.
Sudjic,
D. (1992) The 100-mile City, London:
Andre Deutsch.
Summerson,, J. (1949) Heavenly mansions and other essays on
architecture, London: Cresset Press.
Tafuri,
M. (1976) Architecture and Utopia: Design
and Capitalist Development, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Toca,
A. and Figueroa, A. (1991) México: Nueva Arquitectura, Barcelona
and México City: GG.
Tsiomis,
Y. and Rolin, J. (1997) ‘Brasília’, L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui, 313, October: 76-87.
Turner,
J. (1968) ‘The Squatter Settlement: an Architecture that Works’, Architectural Design, October: 355-360.
Underwood,
D. (1994) Oscar Niemeyer and the
Architecture of Brazil, New York.
Underwood,
D. (1994) Oscar Niemeyer and Brazilian
Free-Form Modernism, New York.
Vidler, A. (1992) The Architectural Uncanny, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Vidler,
A. (2000) Warped Space: Art, Architecture
and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Cambridge (Mass.) and London: MIT Press.
Wirth,
L. (1938), ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, American
Journal of Sociology, XLIV: 1-24, July.
Wright,
C.L., and Turkienicz, B. (1988) 'Brasília and the Ageing of Modernism', Cities, 4, November 1988: 347-364.
Wright,
P. (1993) A Journey Through Ruins: A
Keyhole Portrait of British Postwar Life and Culture, London, Flamingo.
Zukin, S. (1982) Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change, Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Zukin,
S. (1991) Landscapes of Power: From
Detroit to Disney World, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Zukin,
S. (1992) 'The City as a Landscape of Power: London and New York as Global
Finance Capitals' in L. Budd and S Whimster (eds. 1992) Global Finance and Urban Living: A Study in Metropolitan Change,
London: Routledge.
Back to Contents
ARCHITECTURE AND
MODERNITY
10
x 2 hour seminars
MSc
TAUGHT COURSE OPTION 2003-4
This
is a course about modernity and the city. Its historical scope takes in the
whole of the twentieth century, up to and including some contemporary
developments. Its geographical scope is wide, encompassing developments in key
cities in Europe and the US, as well as two Latin American countries (Brazil
and México) where the idea of modernity has been given spectacular built form.
Edinburgh, its post-WWII reconstruction and contemporary developments, is a
constant reference point. In this way the course has a number of important
material foci (cities and buildings), but its primary purpose is to analyse a
set of interconnecting debates about the city, in international architectural
discourse. The material cases discussed in the course - Le Corbusier's Paris, Brasília, New York - are treated as
philosophical propositions. In each case, the questions are these: what is the
specific idea of modernity that is given built expression? What form does it
take? How is the user or inhabitant of modern space supposed to act in it?
The
course is divided into four broad sections. (i) deals with the burgeoning early
twentieth century literature around the problem of the city, and some canonical
solutions; (ii) considers the spectacular adaptation of architectural modernism
in Latin America; (iii) considers the fate of post-war architectural
modernisation in the English-speaking world; (iv) considers the position of
architectural modernism now, with respect to some contemporary schemes.
The
university library’s holdings of architectural journals provide an outstanding
resource base for the course. There
will also be opportunities to work with the Percy Johnson-Marshall collection
at the University, a vast archive of material on modern architecture, planning
and urban design throughout the world.
(i)
Anxious modernities
·
Engels on the Victorian city - Benjamin, Kracauer and Simmel
on the Modern city - anti-urbanism
·
Responses to the modern city - Garden Cities - Le Corbusier
(ii)
Latin modernities
·
Le Corbusier and the Americas - plans for Rio de Janeiro -
the MEC
·
Brasília
·
México DF - Barragán and Goeritz - the UNAM
(iii)
Modernity in the English-speaking world
·
post-war reconstruction in Britain - relationship to
developments elsewhere - architecture and the welfare state
·
California and the Case Study houses
·
Edinburgh case study
(iv)
Modernity now
·
architectural modernism as a style - neo-modernism and
postmodernism
·
Resistance to architectural modernism in Britain and the US
- Jane Jacobs to Prince Charles
Essay
questions
Referring
to urban theory, explore the term anxiety in relation to the city.
In
the work of Percy Johnson-Marshall, how did post-war Edinburgh re-imagine
itself in terms of modernity?
Analyse
the relationship between Le Corbusier and Brazil.
What
idea of modernity did Brasília represent? How, precisely, was it represented?
Discuss
modern Mexican identity as represented in either the public sculpture of
Goeritz and Barragán, or the UNAM.
On
what grounds did Prince Charles object to architectural modernism? Did he win
or lose his battle with the architects?
Bibliography
Adrià,
M. (1996) México: una Arquitectura
Contemporánea, Barcelona and México City: GG.
L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui (1962) special edition on Oscar Niemeyer, 171.
Barragán,
L. (1992) Amando Salas Portugal
photographs of the architecture of Luis Barragán, New York: Rizzoli
Barragán,
L. (1979) House and Atélier for Luis
Barragán, Tokyo: A.D.T.
Battcock,
G. (ed.) Minimal Art: a Critical
Anthology with an introduction
Benjamin, W. (2000) The Arcades Project trans. Howard Eiland
and Kevin McLaughlin, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
Berman,
M. (1983) All that is Solid Melts into
Air, London: Verso.
Boone,
C. (1995), Review of Latin American
Cities by Alan Gilbert, Cities,
12, 2: 119-120.
Braga,
A. da Costa and Falcão, F. A. R. (1997) Guia
de Urbanismo, Arquitectura e Arte de Brasília, Brasília: Fundação Athos
Bulcão.
Burri,
R. (2001) Luis Barragán: The Quiet
Revolution, London: Phaidon.
Cavalcanti,
L. (2001) Quando Brasil era Moderno: Guia
de Arquitectura 1928-1960, Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano
Centro
de Arquitectura e Urbanismo do Rio de Janeiro (2000) Guia da Arquitectura Moderna no Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro:
Casa da Palavra.
Damaz,
P. (1963) Art in Latin America, New
York.
Epstein,
D. G. (1973) Brasilia, Plan and Reality -
A Study of Planned and Spontaneous Urban Development, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Evanson,
N. (1973) “Two Brazilian Capitals”, New Haven and London: Yale University
Press.
Frampton, K. (1983) 'Towards a Critical
Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance' in Foster, H. (ed.),
The anti-aesthetic: essays on postmodern
culture, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1983, pp. 16-30.
Frampton,
K. (1992) Modern Architecture: A Critical
History, London and New York: Thames and Hudson.
Frampton,
K. (2001) Le Corbusier, London:
Thames and Hudson.
Fraser,
V. (2000) Building the New World: Studies
in the Architecture of Latin America 1930-1960, London: Verso.
Gautherot,
M. (1966) Brasília, New York:
Doubleday.
Gilbert,
A., 'Moving the Capital of Argentina: A Further Example of Utopian Planning?', Cities, 6, 3, August 1989, pp. 234-242
Gilbert,
A., Latin American Cities, Latin
American Bureau, London, 1995
Gilloch,
G. (2002) Walter Benjamin: Critical
Constellations, London: Polity.
Glendinning,
M. and Muthesius, S. (1994) Tower Block,
New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Goodwin,
P. (1943) Brazil Builds: Architecture Old
and New 1652-1942, New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Hall, P. (1996) Cities of Tomorrow, Oxford: Blackwell.
Hall, P. (1999) Cities in Civilization, London, Phoenix.
Heynen, H. (1999) Architecture and Modernity: A Critique, Cambridge (Mass.) and
London: MIT Press.
Hitchcock,
H. R. (1955) Modern Architecture in Latin
America Since 1945, New York.
Holford,
W. (1957) “Brasília, A New Capital City For Brazil”, Architectural Review, 122, 731, December: 395-402.
Holston,
J. (1989) The Modernist City: An
Anthropological Critique of Brasília, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Holston,
J. (1996) ‘Spaces of Insurgent
Citizenship’, Architectural Design,
66, 11-12, November-December: 54-9
Hughes,
J. and Sadler, S. (eds. 2000) Non-Plan:
Essays in Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism,
Oxford: Architectural Press. Irving, M. (2002) 'Growing Pains', Blueprint, December: 36-8.
Jacobs, J. (2000) The Death and Life of Great American Cities , London, Pimlico.
Jencks, C (1985) Modern Movements in Architecture (2nd edition), London:
Penguin.
Leach, N. (ed.) (1997) Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in
Cultural Theory, London: Routledge.
Leach,
N. (ed.) 2002) The Hieroglyphics of
Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis, London: Routledge.
Le
Corbusier (1987) The City of Tomorrow and
its Planning trans. Etchells, F., New York: Dover.
Le
Corbusier (1989) Towards a New
Architecture trans. Etchells, F., Oxford: Architectural Press.
LeGates,
R.T. and F. Stout (eds.) (1996), The City
Reader, Routledge: London.
Lucie-Smith,
E. (1993) Latin American Art of the
Twentieth Century, London: Thames and Hudson.
Lynch,
K. (1961) The Image of the City,
Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Martínez,
A. R. (1996) Luis Barragán: México's
Modern Master, New York: Monacelli.
Miles,
M., Hall, T. and Borden, I. (eds.) (2000) The
City Cultures Reader , London: Routledge.
Mumford,
L. (1961) The City in History,
London: Pelican.
Murphy,
D. (2001) 'Emotional Scenes', Guardian,
17 February.
Rispa,
R. (ed.) (1996) Luis Barragán : the
Complete Works, London: Thames and Hudson
Niemeyer,
O (2000) Minha Arquitectura, Rio de
Janeiro: Editora Revan.
Niemeyer,
O. (2000) The Curves of Time, London:
Phaidon.
Richards,
J.M. (1959) 'Brasília: Progress Report', Architectural
Review, 125, 745, February: 94-104.
Roca,
M. A. (1995) The Architecture of Latin
America, London: Academy Editions.
Rogers, R. and Fisher, M. (1992) A New London, London: Penguin.
Rogers, R. (1997) Cities for a Small Planet, London: Faber and Faber.
Rogers, R. with Power, A. (2000) Cities for a Small Country, London:
Faber and Faber.
Rowe,
C. and Koetter, F. (1978) Collage City,
Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Rowe,
P. G. (1997) Civic Realism, Cambridge
(Mass.): MIT Press.
Rykwert,
J. (2000) The Seduction of Place, London.
Sennett, R. (1986), The Fall of Public Man, London, Faber
and Faber, 1986
Silva,
E. (1971) História de Brasilia: Um Sonho,
Uma Esperança, Uma Realidade, Brasília: Coordenada Editora de Brasília.
Scott,
A. J. and Soja E. (eds.) (1996), The
City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century,
University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.
Staübli,
W. (1966) Brasília, London: Leonard
Hill Books, 1966.
Sudjic,
D. (1992) The 100-mile City, London:
Andre Deutsch.
Sullivan,
E. J. (1996) Latin American Art in the
Twentieth Century, London: Phaidon.
Summerson,, J. (1949) Heavenly mansions : and other essays on
architecture, London: Cresset Press.
Tafuri,
M. (1976) Architecture and Utopia: Design
and Capitalist Development, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Toca,
A. and Figueroa, A. (1991) México: Nueva Arquitectura, Barcelona
and México City: GG.
Tsiomis,
Y. and Rolin, J. (1997) ‘Brasília’, L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui, 313, October: 76-87.
Turner,
J. (1968) ‘The Squatter Settlement: an Architecture that Works’, Architectural Design, October: 355-360.
Underwood,
D. (1994) Oscar Niemeyer and the
Architecture of Brazil, New York.
Underwood,
D. (1994) Oscar Niemeyer and Brazilian
Free-Form Modernism, New York.
Vale,
L. (1995) Architecture, Power and
National Identity, New Haven: Yale, 1992.
Vidler, A. (1992) The Architectural Uncanny, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Vidler,
A. (2000) Warped Space: Art, Architecture
and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Cambridge (Mass.) and London: MIT Press.
Wallis,
B. (ed.) (1984) Art After Modernism:
Rethinking Representation, New York and Boston: The New Museum of
Contemporary Art in association with David R. Godine.
Wirth,
L. (1938), ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, American
Journal of Sociology, XLIV: 1-24, July.
Wright,
C.L., and Turkienicz, B. (1988) 'Brasília and the Ageing of Modernism', Cities, 4, November 1988: 347-364.
Wright,
P. (1993) A Journey Through Ruins: A
Keyhole Portrait of British Postwar Life and Culture, London, Flamingo.
Back to Contents
Future Curriculum
Developments
The
new material will feed into new developments at level 1 and 2 from 2004
onwards. A new course for level 2 provisionally for 2004-5 will be developed in
conjunction with the former department of Architecture, which is likely to be
structured around the theme of the city. Any such course will make reference to
the new material developed on the Latin American city, and there will be
contributions from colleagues on the Chinese city and the city in the Islamic
world. Proposals including this material are at a discussion stage with
Architecture.
The
new material will also allow postgraduate supervision in the area of Latin
American modernism. This will be advertised as a supervisory area on the School
website from September 2003.
Both
of the above are highly likely developments. In the more distant future, with
further research, and better teaching resources it is hoped to produce an
entirely new course at honours level on modernism in Latin American visual
culture.
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Access to Materials
The
primary resources created by the project will be as follows:
(a)
A collection of approximately 100 35mm slides to be catalogued and added to the
University slide collection. These will be available for use in teaching under
existing rules by staff and students at all levels.
(b)
These images will be digitised in 2004-5 at the expense of the University as
part of the ongoing digitisation project in History of Art.
(c) A CD-ROM containing 50 images of
modernist architecture and public art in Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, and México
DF, taken from the slides described under (a). The images are all contemporary.
A list of the images appears as a separate document on the CD-ROM. Copies of
the CD-Rom to be distributed to all interested university departments. It will
be available for use internally at Edinburgh as part of the department's
collection of materials in such a format; it will provide easy access to images
for use in student essays, presentations, and papers.
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Student feedback
For
the reasons described above, neither The
Contemporary City (Hons.) nor Architecture
and Modernity (MSc.) will run until
the 2004-5 session. There is student feedback however from Art as Process, and High and
Low, course which made use of Latin American material in an informal way.
Sample comments as follows:
Art as Process: 'really
enjoyed the course', 'the course was great', 'the best honours course I have
done', 'often really entertaining', 'this course introduced me to material I
had no idea existed.'
High and Low: 'a very
stimulating programme of lectures', 'very enjoyable', 'a very wide range of
material', 'I liked the way non-western material was incorporated as a
reference point.'
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The use of images in the courses
A
large part of the sub-project was about the creation of a new body of images
for use in teaching. Latin American subjects are, as the above makes clear,
rarely taught in British universities, and images are not widely available.
More specifically, the images that are available of key architectural and
sculptural sites are often limited to a few canonical views, giving little
sense of urban context, how that context might have changed over time, or of
how a canonical view might be a very partial one. In my 35mm slide images of
Brasília, for example, I attempted to provide images for students that would
complicate (and therefore enrich) their view of the city as an exemplar of
architectural modernism. Likewise, the Satellite City Towers in México City,
which is depicted in published photographs as a stark and isolated monument of
architectural modernism. My pictures show it embedded in a dense, complex and
chaotic urban environment.
There
were two kinds of image produced by the sub-project. (1) 35mm slides,
approximately 100 in total, added to the departmental slide collection. These
will be available for use by staff in lectures and seminars, and by all
students in seminars. Access, as with all other slides in the collection, is
open to all after a short training session. At Edinburgh, student often study
slides out of class hours, and are encouraged to do so. A range of viewing
equipment (light boxes, compact projectors) is available for them to use.(2) a
CD-ROM containing 50 images. This will be available from the slide library for
use in the library using departmental computers. Initially it will provide
images that can be downloaded into text documents, therefore providing a source
of images for use in essays. In the longer term, the CD-ROM will provide a
source of digital images for use in teaching, when PCs are installed in all
teaching rooms.