ARC451H1 F1
Instructor: Hans Ibelings
Meeting Section: L0102
Fall 2024

This course explores if and how we can liberate architectural history from the clichés, biases and frames that come with the canon. Even if this canon – which is populated by monuments, masterpieces and key buildings – is in flux, neither its core nor its hierarchical structure really changes. /p>

Instead of looking once more to the same familiar highlights that star in almost every history, we are going to test how non-hierarchical methods of selection of projects and people can generate different architectural histories.

The seminar – a mix of lectures, discussions, presentations, brainstorms, workshops and ‘lab tests’ – requires active engagement of students.

First, we will dissect the structure of the canon of modern architecture, followed by a parsing of a number of other narratives that have been developed in response to it, such as popular, vernacular, global, everyday, from below, without architects, and more-than-human architectural histories.

Then, while taking inspiration from random and arbitrary strategies used by writers, artists, composers and photographers, we are going to test if it is actually possible to write non-hierarchical architectural histories, and find out what they can tell us.