YESTERDAY’S TOMORROWS: Prof. Andrew M. Shanken

PAST VISIONS OF FUTURE ARCHITECTUREOffice Hours: Thursday 2:30-4:30

Spring, 2005: Tuesday7-10

510-642-1452

DESCRIPTION

The future ain’t what it used to be. This course explores architectural visions of the future as historical windows, examining them from a number of angles. Using a variety of case studies drawn from different media (architectural theory, film, advertisements, architectural projects, and so on) and periods (turn of the century, the Modern Movement, Depression, World War II, 1960’s, etc.) it provides a sampling of possibilities and models for the final student project, an in-depth, original research paper. Several themes thread their way through the course, including the role of the “unbuilt” in architectural history and architectural practice; the uses of the future in the construction of national and personal identities, cultural narratives, and modern mythologies; the importance of the future as cliché, and the role of play in cultural production.

SYLLABUS

Note: Readings and assignments are listed under the day on which they are due

January 18

1. Introduction: Why we have a future, why it isn’t what it used to be, and what that means…

January 25

2. The Future in Memoriam: The World Trade Center as a barometer of our present future

Lecture followed by discussion and sign up for presentations

Readings:

  1. A packet of readings on the World Trade Center on reserve.
  2. Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia,” on reserve.
  3. Look through Stephens, Imaging Ground Zero
  4. 2-3 page response paper

February 1

3. Time and Its Changing Nature in History

All Read: Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History, 84-147.

*Also, each of us will take an additional reading and prepare short reports. These will be passed out in class on January 25th.

February 8

4. The Beginnings of Architectural Time: Ledoux and Boullée

Lecture: The Pre-Modern Future and the Revolution

Two presentations: Boullée and Ledoux

Discussion: The Revolutionary Future

Readings:

  1. Anthony Vidler, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (NA1053.L4V5 1990): introduction and 255-361 (an extra photocopy of this will be available on reserve).
  2. Boullée reading: TBA
  3. Optional Reading: Koselleck pp.148-153
  4. Optional Reading: I.F. Clarke, The Pattern… 1-12, 15-61. This is a general history of the future as a pre-occupation of the West. It is good background reading.

February 15

5. The Future after World War I

Lecture: Futurism and Beyond

Two presentations: Choose from Sant’Elia, Mendelsohn, Polzeig, Taut, Scheerbart,

Arthur Korn, or a presentation on another Expressionist, or the Glass Chain

Letters.

Discussion: Futurism and Expressionism

Readings:

  1. Reserve: Marinetti, Sant’Elia and Marinetti, on reserve
  2. Readings picked out by presenters.
  3. For background on Futurism, see Richard Humphreys, Futurism
  4. Optional Reading: Esther Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant’Elia: Retreat into the Future.

February 22

6. The Modernist City of Tomorrow: The Case of Le Corbusier

Lecture: Yesterday’s City of Tomorrow

Two Presentations on Le Corbusier

Discussion: The City of Tomorrow

Readings:

  1. Le Corbusier, City of To-morrow (entire)
  2. Optional Reading: I.F. Clarke: Check out pp. 197-221, 225-251.

Writing: Le Corbusier is slippery about his idea of the future, adamantly refusing to

admit that it is anything but contemporary. Write a 2-3 page response to The City of To-Morrow that addresses why he does this, and what this has to do with his architectural vision. Bring this to class. I will pass out a more specific assignment on Feb. 15.

March 1

7. The Future, Big and Tall: The Future as Skyscraper:

Lecture: A History of the Tall Building

Presentations: Two of the following: King’s New York, Hugh Ferriss, the 1928

Commissioner’s Report for New York City, Harvey Wiley Corbett, King Camp

Gillette, 1922 Chicago Tribune Competition, etc.

Discussion: The Tall Building Reconsidered as Anticipatory Object

Readings:

  1. Reserve: Sullivan, Jean-Louis Cohen: TBA
  2. Look through Hugh Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow
  3. And possibly something on the Chicago Tribune Exhibition

March 8

8. “The World of Tomorrow”: The 1939 New York World’s Fair

Short Film: Lewis Mumford’s “The City,” 1939

Two presentations on the 1939 New York World’s Fair

Discussion: The Exhibitionary Future

Readings:

1. Reserve: Christina Cogdell, article on Bel Geddes in American Quarterly 52.2 (2000) 193-245

2. There is a surprising dearth of good readings on the World’s Fair. Consult the following websites to get a sense for what the Fair was about: and *I am usually against using the web in this fashion, but I think this may be more useful than a general reading on the Fair.

3. Possibly other readings recommended by the presenters….

*SUBMIT FINAL PAPER IDEAS in class. I will make extra office hours this week in order to meet with anyone who wants help shaping a topic. This may take the form of a question or hypothesis and a description of where you hope to go with it.

March 15

9. The House of Tomorrow

Discussions: The House of Tomorrow

Presentation possibilities: Chermayeff, Lescaze, Keck, Paul Nelson, George Nelson’s

Tomorrow’s House, Monsanto, Atom Bomb House, Wallace Neff, Buckminster Fuller, etc. Presenters please consult with me.

General Reading:

  1. Corn and Horrigan, pp. TBA
  2. Individual readings added by presenters

March 21-25: Spring Recess

March 29

10. The Architecture of 194X: Wartime Visions of the Future in the United States

Lecture: The Architecture of 194X

Presentations on the Architecture of 194X

Discussion: 194X

Readings:

  1. TBA: Either selections from my manuscript (if I can bear to let you read it) or various pieces in the architectural press.
  2. Homo Ludens selections, TBA

April 5

11. Workshop I:

This week we will read abstracts for the final projects from half of the class and make them the substance of our discussion. Abstracts due by Friday, April 1 at noon. The point of a workshop is to give you the opportunity to gain from the insights of the class.

April 12

12. Workshop II.

April 19

13. Open Week: You will decide your future this week. See the suggestions below. In either

case, I would like you to form the bibliography and tell me how you would like this

session structured.

Possibilities:

1. The Postwar Period and the Future:

Archigram, Metabolism, Situationists (see Mark Wigley, Constant’s New Babylon): We could even do separate readings on the postwar period: including the above, plus Banham’s Megastructures.

2. Y2K: Anticipating the Millennium

Charles Jencks, Ford Motors Holiday Resort in 2000: See Corn (103), etc.

  1. The pre-modern future: Thomas More’s Utopia, Tomasso Campanella’s City of the

Sun, etc.

  1. Or, we use this week to finish the workshops.

April 26

12. Final Presentations I:

May 3

13. Final Presentations II:

FINAL PAPERS DUE IN CLASS TODAY!

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

The major requirement of this course is a final seminar paper of 20-25 pages representing original work on some aspect of the topic of the course. Other short response papers will be considered part of the participation grade, as will presentations.

Expectations on written work

The final paper should be lucid, well organized, thoughtfully researched, and represent an original point of view. You will be rewarded for taking chances with ideas, as well as for critical thinking, and disciplined scholarship. All papers should be double-spaced, typed, stapled, and paginated. Electronic papers will not be accepted. You are expected to know and use proper citations in written work and to abide by the University’s rules regarding plagiarism and academic honesty. For all matters of style, grammar and citation, please refer to the Chicago Manual or the MLA. A reference librarian can help you find these.

Late paper policy

DO NOT ASK ME FOR EXTENSIONS. Late papers will be penalized one grade per day. An A will become an A- after one day, a B+ after two days, and so on, unless we have a pre-arrangement because of extenuating circumstances. Please no fiascos of the uncooperative printer sort.

Presentations

In theory, presentations allow students to command the classroom and to shape the course as they wish, albeit for a short moment. However, we have all sat through well-intentioned presentations that could cure a minor sleep disorder. Take this as a challenge and as a social responsibility to make yours memorable. This demands careful preparation on your part. A ten-minute presentation often takes more time to prepare than a longer one. However, it takes only ten minutes to practice a ten-minute presentation. Please take the time to practice so that you do not go over the allotted time. You may not read from a script, but you may use notes.

Your presentation(s) will be graded on a combination of the following criteria:

  1. organization and whether you finish in the allotted time
  2. lucidity and care of presentation
  3. quality of your ideas
  4. your engagement with the larger intellectual content or questions of the course.

There are various ways to show images in class. One is to photocopy enough for the class, which can be costly, even if we all share. Another is to ask the AVRL staff on the 4th floor of Wurster to make slides for you. You need to tell them at least one week ahead of time. You may also scan images and project them that way. In all cases, please be sure to let me know what kind of equipment you will need for the presentation at least 24 hours beforehand.

Contact Information

Andy Shanken ()

642-1452 (O) and in case of emergency 704-0297 (H)

Note on email: I consider email a distant third to personal contact and the phone as a form of communication. Please be considerate of the sorts of issues you address on email, reserving anything that can wait for class or office hours.

Texts

There are only two texts available for this course in the University’s bookstore: Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History and Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens. Both are great and worth buying. You also should consider purchasing Le Corbusier, City of To-Morrow and Its Planning, which can be found used quite easily.

Selected Bibliography

Charles M. Andrews, Famous Utopias (1937) – Main 321 07 F21

W. H. G. Armytage, Yesterday’s Tomorrows: A Historical Survey of Future Societies 91969) – Main 335.020.9AR59Y

Reyner Banham, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (1976) --

Iain Borden, Architecture and the Sites of History(1996) – NA9040 A67

Ernest Burden, Visionary Architecture: Unbuilt Works of the Imagination (New York: McGraw-

Hill, 2000).

Stephen Coates and Alex Stetter, eds., ImpossibleWorks: The Architecture of Perfection (Basel:

Birkhauser, 2000).

Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan, Yesterday’s Tomorrows (1984) -- E169.1.C777 1984

Norma Evenson, “Yesterday’s City of Tomorrow Today,” in H. Allen Brooks, ed., Le Corbusier 241-255

Hugh Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow – 710 F417M

Norman Bel Geddes, Horizons (1932) – Storage 745 G267 H

Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (1940) – Main 383.1 G267M

Mary Davis Gillies, What Women Want in Their Kitchens of Tomorrow: A Report of the

Kitchen of Tomorrow Contest Conducted by McCall’s Magazine (McCall’s, 1944)

TX653; .M261

Tom Gunning, The Films of Fritz Lang : Allegories of Vision and Modernity (2000) -- PN1998.3.L36 G86 2000

Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition – Main GT95 I581983

House of Tomorrow: America’s First Glass House (Chicago, 1933). Environ DsgnNA4140; .K4

Richard Humphreys, Futurism (1999) -- NX552.A1 H86 1999

Charles Jencks, Architecture 2000: Predictions and Methods (1973) -- 724.9J41A

Emil Kaufmann, “Etienne-Louis Boullée,” Art Bulletin 21, 3 (Sept., 1939): 213-227

---, “Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Inaugurator of a New Architectural System,” Journal of the Society

of Architectural Historians 3 (July, 1943): 12-20

---, “Jean-Jacques Lequeu,” Art Bulletin 31 (June, 1949): 130-135

Rem Koolhaas, “La Ville Radieuse,” in In the Footsteps of Le Corbusier, 165-175

Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning (1929) -- NA9090.J413 1929A

---, The Radiant City (1933) -- NA9030.J4213

Jean Ferriss Leich, Architectural Visions: The Drawings of Hugh Ferriss (1980) -- NA737 F47 L44

Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (1992) – Main D16.9 L413

See “The Ghost of the Past: Fascination with the Future in the 20th Century.”

Raymond Loewy, Industrial Design (1979) – TS140 L63 A34

Reginal Malcomson, Visionary Projects for Buildings and Cities (Washington, 1974).

Tod A. Marder, “Context for Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s Oikema,” Arts Magazine 54, 1 (Sept., 1979): 174-176

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism,” in R.M. Flint, ed.,

Marinetti (1971): 39-44

Robert Marks, Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller (1973)– 724.91 F9592M

Roy Mason and Lane Jennings, Xanadu: The Computerized Home of Tomorrow (Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books, 1983)

Esther da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant’Elia: Retreat into the Future (1995) –

NA2707 S28 M48

Michael Minden and Holger Bachmann, eds. Fritz Lang's Metropolis : Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear (Rochester, NY : Camden House, 2000) PN1997.M436 F75 2000

George Nelson and Henry Wright Tomorrow’s House (1945) -- 728N333T

Cees Nooteboom, Unbuilt Netherlands: Visionary Projects by Berlage, Oud, Duiker, Van den

Brock, Van Eyck, Herzberger, and Others (New York: Rizzoli, 1985).

Robert Olsen, et. al., Vision 2000: Shaping Architecture’s Future Washington, D.C. : American Institute of Architects, [1988?]

Richard Patterson, “Three Revolutionary Architects,” in Iain Borden, Architecture and the Sites

of History(1996) – NA9040 A67

Cleveland Rodgers, New York: The World’s Capital City (1948) -- 974.71R616N

Cleveland Rodgers, New York Plans for the Future (1943)

Antonio Sant’Elia and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Futurist Architecture,” in Ulrich Conrads,

Ed., Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture (1971): 34-38

Lloyd Steven Sieden, Buckminster Fuller’s Universe (1989/2000) – T49.5 S575

Suzanne Stephens, Imagining Ground Zero (New York: Rizzoli, 2004)

Paolo Soleri, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (1969) Art Spec. Coll. 711.4So43A

Louis Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” (1996), in Leland M. Roth,

America Builds (1983): 340-346

Bruno Taut, Alpine Architecture – 721.O44Sch22GE

Walter Dorwin Teague, Design This Day (1940) – 745 T221D

Georges Teyssot, “Emil Kaufmann and the Architecture of Reason: Klassizismus and ‘Revolutionary Architecture,” Oppositions 13 (1978): 46-75

Christian W. Thomsen, Visionary Architecture: From Babylon to Virtual Reality (New York:

Prestel, 1994).NA203; .T46 1994

Anthony Vidler, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux: Architecture and Social Reform at the End of the

Ancien Regime (1990) -- NA1053.L4V5 1990

Frederic R. White, Famous Utopias of the Renaissance (1955) – Main 321 07 W583 F

Paul Zucker, New Architecture and City Planning (1944) -- 720.82Z83N

New York World’s Fair

Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Remembering the Future: The New York World’s Fair (1989) -- T786 1964.B1R45 1989

David Hillel Gelernter, 1939, The Lost World of the Fair (1995) -- T785.B1 G45 1995

Helen Harrison, et. al. Dawn of a New Day: The New York World’s Fair 1939/40 (1980)

Rebecca B. Rankin, New York Advancing (1939) – Storage 352.074.71R167 1939

Richard Wurts, The New York World’s Fair (1977) -- T785.C1W87 1977

Time

Arno Borst, The Ordering of Time from the Ancient Computer to the Modern Computer, trans.

Andrew Winnard (University of Chicago, 1993)

Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600

(Cambridge University Press, 1997).

A. J. Gurevich, “Time as a Problem of Cultural History,” in L. Gardet et. Al., ed., Cultures and

Time (Paris: UNESCO Press, 1976)

Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

1983).

Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (MIT

Press, 1985).

David S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World

(Cambridge: Harard University Press, 1983)

Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1992

Charles M. Sherover, ed., The Human Experience of Time: The Development fo Its

Philosophical Meaning (New York University Press, 1975)

Donald J. Wilcox, The Measure of Times Past: Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric of

Relative Time (University of Chicago, 1987).

Eviatar Zerubavel, Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life (Chicago:

University of Chicago, 1967)

Other projects to think about adding:

Bruce Goff, John Garvey House number 1 (in Burden, Visionary Architecture, p. 65), and his other houses in this volume.

Who was Robert Faust, also in Burden, Visionary Architecture? And Eric Burden, for that matter, was a visionary architect.

Hans Hollein?

Lebbeus Woods

Isosaki, Kurakawa,

Might I add the Chermayeff piece and the one about the Anglo-Saxon revolt. These could be paired to bring out a few points: 1) that the future is not solely the domain of visionaries and liberals. 2) that it can be satirical 3) and like satire, it helps us deal with something that might be too difficult or politically fractious if one were direct—the future, like humor, allows us to pull back when confronted, and say, I was only kidding. Maybe I get rid of the 1920’s, and do something else instead. From the frame of anticipation, of inventing futures, everything that goes through this process first awakened in the 18th c., is essentially modern, not postmodern, or global, or anything else: part of a tradition of temporal imagination.

Notes on what to do with some of the lectures, etc.

Feb. 15: The future before and after WWI:

This should show some of Owens, Charles Fourrier, Robida, and the World Exhibitions as sites of future investigation, to set up WWI as a pivotal moment. Then do Tony Garnier and Sant’Elia.

-see Taut books in library; Glass Chain book; Marinetti essay; make sure you have materials for the lecture/readings: Fourrier, Owens, Robida, World Exhibitions, and then Taut, Scheerbart, Futurism. Also, see your catalogue on Utopia and Expressionism: the first essay and a couple of other may do the trick, plus a couple of reports, one on Sant’Elia, another on ???

Feb. 22: Le Corb.

Here you should hunt down Peter Bell’s article on Corbu and the donkey’s way. How do you respond to this? The relationship to Perret is important? As is the Tony Garnier connection? Are these precedents?

Mar. 1: Tall building

okay, so Ferriss, Sullivan, Jean-Louis Cohen, but what else? What holds this together? You need to order Gillette, and make slides. Also, the guy who did the Mayan skyscrapers. Is there anything on Ferriss (Edouardo’s stuff?). Note that this is the real moment that the future crosses the Atlantic: it is where America begins to steal the idea of modern architecture.

NYWF

Do we look at Mumford’s film, or the film on the Fair?

Ask Kathy in AmStudies about good 1939 readings?

We should read the article on Bel Geddes, to think through Industrial Designers

Look up NYWF on Avery and JSTOR