HISTORY OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE ARC 342R-2 (00756) / ARC 388R (00906) Spring 2018 Dr. Richard Cleary Time and place: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:45, Sutton 3.112 Instructor contact information Office Location: Sutton 4.122 Office Hours: Tuesday, 2:00-3:00, and by appointment cleary@austin.utexas.edu Prerequisites Undergraduate students in the School of Architecture program must have completed ARC 318L World Architecture: Industrial Revolution to Present. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students from other departments are welcome to enroll with the consent of the instructor. Description This lecture/discussion course surveys architecture in the United States from Pre-Columbian times to the present. It is arranged chronologically and thematically to consider topics such as Native American architecture, national and regional identity, and responses to rapid economic and social change. In addition to examples by celebrated architects such as Thomas Jefferson, H. H. Richardson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, and Charles Moore, the course examines aspects of vernacular building and modern commercial architecture. Architecture in Texas is considered within these broader contexts. Educational Objectives This is an intermediate-level, lecture/discussion course building on the foundation of the world architecture survey sequence. It offers frameworks for interpreting the history of architecture in the United States and opportunities for developing research and writing skills. Texts Leland M. Roth, American Architecture: A History (any edition). Additional readings are posted on Canvas Useful reference: Virginia Savage McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America s Domestic Architecture (first published 1984; 2 nd revised and expanded edition, New York: Knopf, 2013).
2 Assignments and Evaluation Examinations (take-home essay format) Take-home midterm due Tuesday, 6 March (25% of final grade) Take-home final due at 5:00 p.m., Monday, 11 May (25% of final grade) Canvas Discussion Posts (10%) For the designated classes in Weeks 3, 7, and 11, respond to the discussion prompts on Canvas. Think of your posts as short essays (approximately 250-300 words) that take a position on the topic. Books and Buildings Essay (10%) Due Tuesday, 13 February Books were important design sources for architects (professionals and amateurs) and builders in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. For this assignment, analyze the translation from a source document to a building in an essay of about three, double-spaced pages (about 750-1000 words), not including illustrations, which may include your own diagrams. More detailed instructions and a list of suggested buildings are available on Canvas. Research paper (30% of final grade) Proposal due Thursday, 22 March: 1-page description plus preliminary bibliography Paper due Tuesday, 8 May Undergraduate papers: length should be approximately 7 to 10 pages (2500 words) plus illustrations, notes, and bibliography Graduate papers: length should be approximately 12 to 15 pages (3500 words) plus illustrations, notes, and bibliography The research paper is an opportunity for you to conduct an inquiry in some depth on a topic related to the scope of the course. You may examine a building or a set of related buildings, aspects of the work of an architect or builder, or a thematic topic. Your topic should lend itself to a focus that allows you to go beyond surface treatments. A topic such as the career of Frank Lloyd Wright is too broad, but one such as Wright and the skyscraper, would be more manageable. The final paper may be submitted on Canvas or as a hard copy. For reference citations, please follow the formats used by the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians or the Chicago Manual of Style. Illustrations and diagrams should have captions. Include a bibliography of the sources you consulted. Do not overlook journals and other periodicals in your research. The principal index for journal articles on architecture is the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. Many full-text articles can be found using the search engine JSTOR. Access the Avery Index and JSTOR through the database list on the UT Libraries website: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/indexes/index.php. If you are new to such reference searches, please don t hesitate to ask me or a librarian in the Architecture and Planning Library.
3 Ground Rules Attendance Policy Regular attendance and preparation are expected. Students with more than three unexcused absences may face a penalty on the final grade. All assignments and examinations must be submitted on the due dates. Late papers may be penalized. Incompletes (X grades) will be awarded only in instances of medical or family emergencies. Accommodation for religious holidays University policy requires notification of the instructor at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, or other assignment in order to observe a religious holy day, you will be given the opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence. Grading standards A represents exemplary work in which the student has successfully realized his or her stated objectives in terms of content and style; B has broader compass in which the intentions of the assignment are met adequately but with some weakness of content or style or reticence in approach; C acknowledges effort but reflects serious problems in content or style; D and F reflect a fundamental lack of effort. I use plus and minus grades for both graduate students and undergraduates. The Honor Code The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity and responsibility. Each member of the University is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community. A note on plagiarism Please take heed of your professional responsibilities regarding plagiarism. The work you present must be your own unless you explicitly indicate otherwise. Be attentive to your use of sources. If you copy or closely paraphrase language from a source (print or internet), you must provide a citation. If you are unsure about what constitutes plagiarism or are unfamiliar with the mechanics of citations (it also is important to know when citations are not necessary) don t hesitate to ask for assistance. University Services for Students Students with a documented disability (physical or cognitive) requiring academic accommodations should contact the Services for Students with Disabilities department of the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259 to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations. I will do my best to work with you. The Counseling & Mental Health Center (CMHC) located in the Student Services Building offers resources for general health and wellbeing, time management, stress management, text anxiety and other personal concerns. 471-3515, http://cmhc.utexas.edu The University Writing Center provides individual, professional advice on all aspects of writing for UT undergraduates and graduate students on a drop-in basis or by appointment. The Center s staff can help you with any writing assignment at any stage of development. uwc.utexas.edu
4 Class Schedule Reading assignments: Roth = Leland M. Roth, American Architecture: A History (C) = pdf available on Canvas Week 1 Tuesday, 16 January: Introduction Thursday, 18 January: Native American Architecture Roth, Chap. 1 Week 2 Tuesday, 23 January: Spanish, French, and English Settlements Roth, Chap. 2 Thursday, 25 January: Architecture in the English Colonies Roth, Chap. 3 Dell Upton, White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, in Robert Blair St. George, ed., Material Life in America, 1600-1860 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), pp. 357-369. Week 3 Tuesday, 30 January: Architecture for a New Nation Due: Discussion post on architectural practice Roth, Chap. 4 (C) Thomas Jefferson correspondence on the Virginia State Capitol; letter from Jefferson to James Madison, 20 September 1785 and letter to the directors of the capitol building, 26 January 1786, in Leland M. Roth, ed., America Builds: Source Documents in American Architecture and Planning (New York: Harper & Row, 1983): pp. 26-31. (C) Benjamin Henry Latrobe on the responsibilities of the architect; letter from Latrobe to Robert Mills, 12 July 1806, in Roth, America Builds, pp. 43-47. Thursday, 1 February: Visit to the Harry Ransom Center Architecture Sourcebooks Week 4 Tuesday, 6 February: Historicism in the 19 th Century Roth, Chaps. 5 and 6 (C) Richard Cleary, Texas Gothic, French Accent: The Architecture of the Roman Catholic Church in Antebellum Texas, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 66, no. 1 (March 2007), pp. 60-83. Thursday, 8 February: Visit to the Neill-Cochran House Clifton Ellis, The Mansion House at Berry Hill Plantation: Architecture and the Changing Nature of Slavery in Antebellum Virginia, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, vol. 14, no. 1 (2006), pp. 22-48.
5 Week 5 Tuesday, 13 February: Visions of Home, Work, Reform, Utopia Due: Books and Buildings Essay (C) Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman s Home (New York, 1869), excerpts in Leland M. Roth, ed., America Builds: Source Documents in American Architecture and Planning (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 57-68. (C) Mary C. Beaudry, The Lowell Boott Mills Complex and Its Housing: Material Expressions of Corporate Ideology, Historical Archaeology 23, no. 1 (1989), pp. 19-32. (C) Julie Nicoletta, The Architecture of Control: Shaker Dwelling Houses and the Reform Movement in Early-Nineteenth-Century America, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62, no. 3 (Sept. 2003), pp. 352-387. Thursday, 15 February: Vernacular Building in 19 th and Early-20 th Century Texas Kenneth Hafertepe, Fachwerk, Log, and Rock: German Texans Houses, in Christine Waller Manca, ed., American Material Culture and the Texas Experience, The David B. Warren Symposium, vol. 2 (Houston: Bayou Bend Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts, 2011), pp. 59-92. Week 6 Tuesday, 20 February: Littlefield Home visit (C) Kenneth L. Ames, Meaning in Artifacts, Hall Furnishings in Victorian America, Journal of Interdisciplinary History vol. 9, no. 1 (Summer, 1978), pp. 19-46. Thursday, 22 February: Richard Morris Hunt and H. H. Richardson (C) R. M. Hunt v E. Parmly, Superior Court, New York, 1861, excerpts of testimony in Leland M. Roth, ed., America Builds: Source Documents in American Architecture and Planning (New York: Harper & Row, 1983): pp. 217-231. (C) James F. O Gorman, The Making of a Richardson Building, 1874-1886, in H. H. Richardson and His Office: Selected Drawings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979), pp. 1-36. Week 7 Tuesday, 27 February: Adler & Sullivan Due: Discussion post on Sullivan s position on ornament (C) Louis H. Sullivan, Ornament in Architecture (1892), reprinted in Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings (New York: Wittenborn, 1947): pp. 188-190. (C) Lauren S, Weingarden, The Colors of Nature: Louis Sullivan s Architectural Polychromy and Nineteenth-Century Color Theory, Winterthur Portfolio 20, no. 4 (Winter, 1985), pp. 243-260. Thursday, 1 March: American Renaissance Roth, Chap. 7 (C) Richard Guy Wilson, Architecture and the Reinterpretation of the Past in the American Renaissance, pp. 227-246.
6 Week 8 Tuesday, 6 March: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School Roth, Chap. 7 Due: Midterm Exam Thursday, 8 March: Progressive Architecture on the West Coast Roth, Chap. 7 (C) Karen McNeill, Julia Morgan: Gender, Architecture, and Professional Style, Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 2 (May 2007), pp. 229-268. Spring Break! Week 9 Tuesday, 20 March: Historicism in the 20 th Century Roth, Chap. 8, pp. 339-360 Thursday, 22 March: Strands of Modernism between the World Wars Due: Research Paper Proposal Roth, Chap. 8, pp. 360-395 Week 10 Tuesday, 27 March: Public Architecture and Infrastructure during the Great Depression Roth, Chap. 8, pp. 395-405 Thursday, 29 March: Social Housing Week 11 Tuesday, 3 April: Canon Fire: Who Gets to Tell the Story? Roth, Chap. 9 Thursday, 5 April: Mid-Century Modernist Houses Due: Discussion post on mid-century modernism Roth, Chap. 9 (C) Alice T. Friedman, People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson, in Keith L. Eggener, ed., American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 316-341. (C) Annmarie Adams, Sex and the Single Building: The Weston Havens House, 1941-2001, Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 17, no. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 82-97. (C) Rachel Stevenson, Living Images: Charles and Ray Eames At Home, Perspecta 37 (2005), pp. 32-41.
7 Week 12 Tuesday, 10 April: Life in the Suburbs (C) Annmarie Adams, The Eichler Home: Intention and Experience in Postwar Suburbia, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 5 (1995), pp. 164-178. Thursday, 12 April: Corporate Modernism (C) Museum of Modern Art, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 18, no. 1 (Autumn 1950), pp. 4-21. (C) Scott G. Knowles and Stuart W. Leslie, Industrial Versailles: Eero Saarinent s Corporate Campuses for GM, IBM, and AT&T, Isis 92, no. 1 (March 2001), pp. 1-33. Week 13 Tuesday, 17 April: Mid-century Expressionism Thursday, 19 April: Modernist Strands in Texas Texas regionalists: Ford, Church, etc. (C) Michelangelo Sabatino, Heat and Light Thematised in the Modern Architecture of Houston, The Journal of Architecture 16/5 (2011), pp. 703-726. Week 14 Tuesday, 24 April: Visit TBA Thursday, 26 April: Postmodern Classicism Roth, Chap. 10 (C) Meredith Clausen, Michael Graves s Portland Building: Power, Politics, and Postmodernism, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 73, no. 2 (June 2014), pp. 248-269. Week 15 Tuesday, 1 May: Postmodern Expressionism Thursday, 3 May: No class final reviews Wrapping Up Tuesday, 8 May: Research Paper Due Friday, 11 May: Take-Home Final Examination Due at 5:00 p.m.