Semester 2,1020 Wed. 9:30-12:30 10.11.27 Susan Massey is a visiting Fulbright scholar with a background in design and history/theory design research.
Reading, Writing, & Rhetoric + Building Provocations for a Rote Relationship
*
[
] Tschumi on Corbusier’s Villa Savoy
[ ] captioning
In the last several years, studios have become influenced by literary theory (Roland Barthes’s The Death of the Author, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Jorge Luis Borges’ “On Exactitude in Science”) and there has been increased engagement with fictional constructs as springboards for the imagination. But, in addition to the translation of sites from literature, and the interpreting and re-appropriation of existing narratives, writing is poised to be a function of design rather than just a framework for it. As such, this elective will explore reading, writing, and rhetoric within theory proper and without, as a means and as an end, from the notational to the annotated, questioning the relationship of each to the building, the process, the practice, and the discipline.
*
“[Tschumi] proposes a
critique of the limits of architectural thought and space through the transgressive act of finding pleasure and beauty in the rotting corpse of Modernism’s first born. ” —Renata Hejduk. Death Becomes Her: transgression, decay, and eROTicism in Bernard Tschumi’s early writing and projects. Journal of architecture, 2007 Sept., v.12, n.4, p.395
As a theory practicum, this course will be comprised of lectures, discussions, and a workshop aimed at developing textual or narrative critique or expression (through presentation/ representation) and will allow you to synthesize your design coursework with the seminar’s assignments. Major Project students may find this course especially beneficial as they frame their engagement with an architectural condition as part of the design process.