ARC3319H F
Instructor: Eric Nay
Meeting Section: LEC0101
Wednesday, 12:00pm - 3:00pm

This course is intended to serve as an advanced architectural analysis course that is also situated as an advanced introduction to critical design methods primarily rooted in sociology, human geography and phenomenology. By drawing upon a diverse body of literatures and a broad range of fields, disciplines and practices, this course will provide an avenue for the exploration of contemporary issues in architecture and design history and theory and contemporary practice that will include critical race theory, post-colonial theory, settler-colonial theory and others, while centering discussions on the notions of space and place.

This history and theory of architecture seminar will provide an opportunity to read and discuss readings and analyze case studies from across a broad range of interdisciplinary authors, practitioners, and ontologies with the goal of unpacking ideas now present in contemporary design thinking and recent theoretical frameworks within the built environment through analysis and critique. Unpacking complex political and social contexts will guide analyses, discussions and structure readings while the notions of space and place will serve as a basis for exploration. Students will engage in reading, discussion, case study analyses in small groups, and then take on a more fulsome individually-authored and theoretically-informed analysis of their own in a cumulative end of term project. Methods of analyses will include conventional representational methods as well as other tactical devises including modelling, mapping and spatial coding, alongside written analysis. By the end of this course, a successful learner should be able to apply a range of non-traditional sociologically-informed analytical methods, theories and frameworks to real world examples within the built environment as a form of critique and as a means to understand the production of space and place in a more fulsome way.

The is course draws from the instructor's background and research by drawing upon a rich combination of fields that includes art, architecture, education, law, political science and sociology. Eric Nay has practiced architecture and design in New York City, Chicago and California and has held multiple teaching, research and management positions in Asia, Europe, North America the Middle East. Eric has published numerous articles, book reviews and white papers in books and journals that include Alternatives Journal, Spool, the International Journal of the Constructed Environment and others. Eric's most recent publications include: Miller, James and Eric Nay, “Ontological Upgrade: Indigenous Futures and Radical Transformations,” Spool. 2022. Vol. 19 No. 1, 65-76 and Miller, James and Eric Nay. “Architecture and the Rights of Nature” in Dialectic VII: Architecture and Citizenship. Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogy. San Rafael: Oro Editions. 2020. 46-54.

Eric works primarily in architectural history and theory and has projects currently underway including a co-edited book with colleagues from South Africa (University of Pretoria) on decolonization in the built environment (Routledge, New York) and is currently working on enshrining the complete work of Erich Mendelsohn on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a serial nomination with a publication forthcoming in the fall (ICOMOS Germany). Eric holds a professional degree in architecture (University of Kentucky), a post-professional M.Arch degree (Cornell University) and holds an interdisciplinary PhD in humanities, social sciences and education (University of Toronto) and has studied law (Hamline University School of Law).