This course studies architecture and urban design throughout the world over the last decade since about 2000. American topics include public and private developmental partnerships in the "neo-liberal" city in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles; contemporary museum architecture; sprawl and New Urbanism; New Orleans after Katrina; and affordable housing, both urban and rural. Major American architects considered include Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, and Daniel Libeskind. Also considered will be the critical architecture of Diller and Scofidio and Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis. In Europe, the focus is on contemporary public architecture in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, Paris, London, Rome, and Athens, with attention to works of Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Santiago Calatrava, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and De Meuron, and Bernard Tschumi. In China, we will study state monuments of the Communist Party in Beijing, and issues of preservation and urban development there and in Shanghai. In Japan, the recent work of Tadao Ando is a focus, as is the "totalscape" of Tokyo. Additional lectures will treat selected architects and sites in India, Moshe Safdie in Israel, and institutional architecture planned for the Persian Gulf and Africa. In Latin America, we will consider urban development in Rio di Janeiro and urban preservation in Quito, Ecuador. The last part of the course will survey the field of green architecture, including traditional methods of heating and cooling houses and larger buildings and the architectural transformations associated with solar power, wind power, geothermal energy, LEEDs certification, and urban agriculture. |