Topics cover contemporary and historical issues in architectural design theory and criticism. For current offerings, see department website.

This seminar will construct a cross-section through the complex history of Mexico City, beginning with the Aztec period in the 14th century, and culminating in the transnational present. The course is at once an attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding of the rich layers of culture that interact to form Mexico City’s history and an inquiry into the potential of material conditions as a starting point for urban and architectural research, using one of the world’s largest and most dynamic cities as a site of investigation. The seminar’s chronological format will be anchored in several major historical texts that will give students a basic understanding of the city’s palimpsest history – one in which layers of the past shape the social and political spaces of urban life today. Course readings, discussions, and lectures will juxtapose more general historical accounts with detailed architectural and urban analyses, organized around urban case studies and their related material conditions (such as earth, water, concrete, blood, waste, and rubble). Students will gain an understanding of new epistemologies and methods of architectural and urban history through a rich combination of interdisciplinary texts. Course requirements include weekly reading responses, case study presentations, and a final paper. The course is open to upper-division undergraduates and graduate students from all disciplines.

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