Special topics in Architectural History. For current section offerings, see departmental announcement.

This seminar examines the legacy of the intersectional countercultures that emerged in the Bay Area in the late-‘60s through the 1970s. Parallel projects of revolutionary social transformation - mounted by ecofreaks, cyberfreaks, and ‘outlaw builders’; Black, Chicano, and Native American activists; lesbians and gay men; and children and ‘free school’ educators - produced multiple maker cultures that marked their 'liberated space' through the adaptive reuse of materials and urban settings. Course readings, sourced from a book of collected essays now in press, explore spatial occupation projects like People’s Park and Alcatraz, hand crafted architecture and the ‘Outlaw Builder,’ the ‘ecofreak’ and the birth of ecological consciousness, the underground poster as a consciousness raising medum, psychedelics as a catalyst of cultural breakthroughs, and the spatial tactics of intentional communities. Our discussions will assess these practices for their potential as a ‘usable past’ capable of informing and inspiring contemporary design radicals and their social transformation projects.

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