ARC5933: Historiographic Methods in Architecture

(listed as Special Topics)

Seminar/3 credit hours
Spring 2011
Florida International University School of Architecture
Professor David Rifkind [david.rifkind@fiu.edu]
PCA341, Monday, 1:00 3:30
Office hours, PCA383b, Wednesday and Friday, 1:30 4:00
This seminar course is designed to introduce graduate students to historiographic methodologies in
architecture. The course will examine the way histories are framed and will revolve around close
readings of major texts representing such key positions as formalism, social histories, operative
and critical histories, Marxist historical analysis, feminist historical analysis, multiple modernities
and architecture in the context of the history of ideas. The class will consider the formation of
canons and the writing of the survey, and will explore the relationships between observation,
description, analysis and interpretation.
Students enrolled in the seminar will take turns leading weekly discussions based on the assigned
readings. Students will also prepare several written assignments over the course of the semester:
a formal analysis of a Miami-area building or landscape, an expanded analysis of the same work in
its social and cultural contexts, an exhibition review, and a book review. Students will be evaluated
on the basis of their written assignments and class participation.
The courses expected outcomes include a profound understanding of the key historical texts listed as
assigned readings, an acute understanding of the broad range of historiographic methodologies
employed by architectural historians, and an advanced ability to examine, analyze and interpret
architecture. The course aims to help students develop an ability to read architectural history
critically, and to write architectural history incisively.
The only prerequisite for the course is graduate standing. There are no co-requisites; however,
students are encouraged to register for, or attend, ARC2701: History of Design from Antiquity to
the Eighteenth Century. The seminar is a required core class for the Graduate Certificate in
Architectural History, Theory and Criticism.
There is no course textbook. Required readings are available online at:
http://web.mac.com/davidrifkind/fiu/library.html.
Schedule of classes:
1 [8.22]

introduction
reading: Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture. Cambridge,
1999. Chapter 1: The Art Historians and the Founding Genealogies of Modern
Architecture, 21-50.
optional: On the Methodology of Architectural History, ed. Demetri Porphyrios,
Special Issue, Architectural Design (1981).

2 [8.29]

Kaufmann
reading: Emil Kaufmann, Three Revolutionary Architects, Boulle, Ledoux, and
Lequeu, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, V. 42, N. 3. (1952), 431564.
optional: Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
Modernism. Cambridge, 2008. Chapter 1: Neoclassical Modernism: Emil Kaufmann, 1760.
Heinrich Wlfflin, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style
in Later Art. (1915). Translated by M.D. Hottinger. New York, 1950.

[9.5]

Labor Day no class

3 [9.12]

Wittkower
reading: Rudolph Wittkower, The Centrally Planned Church and the Renaissance, in
Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, New York, 1949, pp.3-32.

optional: Erwin Panofsky, The Neo-Platonic Movement and Michelangelo, in Studies

in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, New York, 1939.
Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form. (1927). Cambridge, 1993.
First writing assignment due
4 [9.19]

Pevsner
reading: Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of the modern movement from William Morris
to Walter Gropius. London, 1936.
optional: Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History. New York, 1980.

5 [9.26]

Giedion
reading: Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture. Cambridge, 1941.
optional: Detlef Mertins, Transparencies Yet to Come: Sigfried Giedion and the
Prehistory of Architectural Modernity (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1996).
Detlef Mertins, "Sigfried Giedion," Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. New York, 1998. v. 2,
301-304.
Detlef Mertins, "System and Freedom: Sigfried Giedion, Emil Kaufmann and the
Constitution of Architectural Modernity." In Robert Somol, ed. Autonomy and Idoeology:
The Origins of the Avant-Garde in America, 1923-1949. New York, 1997, 212-31.
Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique. Cambridge, 2000. Chapter 2:
Constructing the Modern Movement, 20-70.
Sigfried Giedion, History and the Architect, Journal of Architectural Education, vol.
XII:2, Summer 1957, p. 14-16.

6 [10.3]

Rowe
reading: Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (1947), in The Mathematics
of the Ideal Villa and other Essays. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976, pp. 1-27.
optional: Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
Modernism. Cambridge, 2008. Chapter 2: Mannerist Modernism: Colin Rowe, 61-106.
Michael Fried, "Modernist Painting and Formal Criticism," American Scholar 33
(1964): 642-648. Expanded version in Fried, Three American Painters. Cambridge,
1965.
Second writing assignment due

7 [10.10]

Banham
reading: Reyner Banham, Theory of Design in the First Machine Age, 1960.
optional: Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
Modernism. Cambridge, 2008. Chapter 3: Futurist Modernism: Reyner Banham, 107156.
optional: The History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture. ed. Marcus Whiffen,
Cambridge, 1964. Essay by Banham.
Nigel Whiteley, Reyner Banham: Historian of the Immediate Future. Cambridge, 2002.

8 [10.17]

Tafuri
reading: Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture, 2 vols. New York,
1986.
optional: Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
Modernism. Cambridge, 2008. Chapter 4: Renaissance Modernism: Manfredo Tafuri,
157-190.
Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique. Cambridge, 2000. The Venice
School, or the Diagnosis of Negative Thought, 128-.
Fredric Jameson, "Architecture and the Critique of Ideology," in Architecture
Criticism Ideology, eds. Joan Ockman et al, Revisions, Princeton, 1985, 51-87.
Raymond Williams, Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory, New Left
Review 82, (November-December 1973), 3-16.

9 [10.24]

Tafuri II: operative and critical histories

reading: Manfredo Tafuri, Theories and History of Architecture [1968] London, 1980.
optional: Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,"
and "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, New
York, 1968.
Third writing assignment due

10 [10.31] redressing modernity

reading: Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, 1750-1950. London,
1965.
optional: Alberto Prez-Gmez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge,
1983.
The History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture. ed. Marcus Whiffen, Cambridge, 1964.
Essay by Collins.
11 [11.7]

redressing history
reading: Dana Arnold, Reading Architectural History, London, 2002. Excerpted texts
from E. H. Carr and Hayden White, plus Arnolds introductions.
optional: Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. trans. John and
Anne Tedeschi, Baltimore, 1986.
Mark Jarzombek, A Prolegomenon to Critical Historiography, Journal of
Architectural Education, 52, no. 4 (1999): 197-206.

12 [11.14] redressing history II

reading: Linda Nochlin, Why have there been no great women artists? (1971) in
Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays. New York, 1988, 145-178.
optional: Nochlin, Women, Art, and Power, (1988) in Women, Art, and Power and
Other Essays. 1-36.
T..J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life. New York, 1985. Olympia's Choice, 79-146.
Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford, 1972.
Conditions of Trade, 1-28.
Fourth writing assignment due
13 [11.21] The Survey
reading: Stanford Anderson, Architectural History in Schools of Architecture, The
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 58, No. 3, Architectural
History1999/2000. (Sep., 1999), 282-290.
Susana Torre, Teaching Architectural History in Latin America: The Elusive Unifying
Architectural Discourse, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol.
61, No. 4. (Dec., 2002), 549-558.
14 [11.28] The Survey II
reading: Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, and What is an author?
(1969) in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. ed. Donald F. Bouchard, Ithaca, N.Y.,
1977.
Mark Jarzombek, The Disciplinary Dislocations of Architectural History, The Journal
of the Society of Architectural Historians (Winter 1999), 488-493.

ARC5933: Historiographic Methods in Architecture

Class policies:
Course Evaluation
Grading will be based on the University System. The final grade will be determined on the following
basis:
Class Participation
Written assignments
formal analysis
expanded analysis
exhibition review
book review

12%
88%
22%
22%
22%
22%

Grades
94-100= A 87-89= B+ 80-83= B- 74-76= C
90-93= A- 84-86= B 77-79= C+ 70-73= C-

67-69= D+ 60-63= D64-66= D 0-59= F

Class Standards
Attendance and class participation are required at all class meetings (see Course Schedule). Four (4)
unexcused absences automatically result in a failing grade for the course. An acceptable excused
absence is defined by the student having missed class due to extraordinary circumstances beyond
his or her control and must be accompanied by written proof.
Student Rights and Responsibilities
It is the students responsibility to obtain, become familiar with, and abide by all Departmental,
College and University requirements and regulations. These include but are not limited to:
- The Florida International University Catalog Division of Student Affairs Handbook of Rights and
Responsibilities
- Departmental Curriculum and Program Sheets
- Departmental Policies and Regulations
Student Work
The School of Architecture reserves the right to retain any and all student work for the purpose of
record, exhibition and instruction. All students are encouraged to photograph and/or copy all work
for personal records prior to submittal to instructor.