ARTH 252(S) Campuses (Same as Environmental Studies 252)
An historical study of the North-American campus, primarily its educational or institutional guise, but also as found in some office and industrial
"parks," concentrating upon aspects of site design, such as the fit between
physiography and building location. Applying such Lynchian precepts as
edge, path and node, our inquiry will be both diachronic and comparative.
What happens when campuses grow, or diminish? What happens when
their surrounding change, or deteriorate: What uses of space are located
where, and to what extent is their spatial layout an hierarchical one? Why
have some campuses few imitators (even if, as in the instance of Thomas
Jefferson's "academical village," their plan has been much extolled)?
Among other topics to be considered are: issues of integration within or
separation from towns, accommodations to the automobile and to field
sports as spatially consumptive uses (leading to increasingly spread-out
plans); design as a reflection of pedagogical agenda (or even monastic
tradition?); successional uses of the same building or space, especially as
increasing enrollments may bring increasing specialization (of building
functions); traffic as a function of buildings; campuses pretty much created
all at once and campuses more polyglot, with generational changes in design and even purpose; "dead," or vestigial spaces, or buildings, such as
through the demise of required chapel attendance. Major attention will be
given to seminal designs and designers. Regional examples of a wide variety of campuses will be visited during field sessions.
Biweekly attendance at ten weekly field sessions. Requirements: term paper to be submitted in three segments and preferably considering a campus
(and its institution through one century).
No prerequisites.