Architectural Theory and Criticism

This graduate seminar treats modern architecture as an argument rather than a style: each week you put two canonical buildings side by side—Schroder House against Maison Cook, Tugendhat against Villa Mairea, Kimbell against Nordjyllands—and work out what the comparison reveals about the social, political, and theoretical commitments built into the form. Most of the term is reading Frampton, Curtis, and the early-century manifestoes alongside the buildings, then producing three written assignments plus a final report that pushes one of the comparisons into your own research argument. It's the course where the history-survey reflex gives way to taking positions, which is the move you need before a thesis or any serious design-research track.