What is "the public," and how has it been conceived, relative to notions of the urban--to the web of ideas, forms, and fantasies constituting "the city"? Can art and architecture play a role in defining the public, or does the public's political and social construction place it outside the scope of specifically aesthetic concerns? This course addresses these and other related questions, positioning art and architecture in their broader cultural and historical contexts. It explores a range of socially charged, experiential, and participatory aesthetic and political practices, characterized by their distinctly public character and decidedly architectural and urban settings. At its core, it is concerned with issues of social justice as they relate to the material spaces of the modern city, and the manner in which those spaces are identified, codified, and made operative in the service of aesthetic, social, and political experience.
This course will be taught by M. Surry Schlabs, Yale School of Architecture. |