ARTH 26.04 FSP: The Architecture and Urbanism of Rome

No site offers the same enduring importance for Western history and culture as the city of Rome. As a secular and spiritual capital, it bears evidence to three millennia of human ambitions and evolving patterns of social and political organization. Its topography is a vast archive, which we will engage though lectures, discussions, group projects, movies and by immersing ourselves into the city itself. This course surveys the topography and urbanism of Rome from its origins to the present. While the immediate goal will be to study the city, the larger goal will be to provide a conceptual framework with which to consider the power and function of cities—one of humanity’s most important inventions. We will ponder such essential questions as: why and how did cities like Rome arise and change over centuries? What social, cultural, topographic forces push and pull at a city’s built fabric? How were individual structures, public spaces, and neighborhoods built to respond to such forces?

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