COML603 - Poetique Du Recit

Does architectural theory define architectural practice? The present seminar will explore this question in a number of ways. It will look at prominent examples of contemporary architecture and their evaluation by prize committees and architectural critics; recent theoretical work and architectural manifestoes and the practice of architectural firms; and the writings and work by architect-critics such as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, and Peter Zumthor. In the course of our seminar, we will also reflect on the question whether architecture, a discipline that deals with an inhabitable environment, may differ in its relationship between theory and practice from other arts, such as painting or literature.