Architecture of Cities

Warren E. Huff, instructor

The Philadelphia Center Elective

IDS 360

Class one:

THE TRIBAL VILLAGE, THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CITY

An examination of what Leaky calls "settling down", primitive people's

efforts away from a hunter-gatherer culture toward an agrarian culture (8,000

BC in the Near East to a building culture 7,000 BC).

Class two:

STRUCTURES

Post and Beam, Arch, Cantilever, Truss,

Class: three

PHILADELPHIA SATURDAY FIELD TRIP 

A walking tour, starting at the Art Museum, of the living architectural,

planning

and urban design museum of downtown

Class four:

THE RISE OF THE CLASSICAL ORDERS

"ab origine, ad urbe condita" (from the beginning to the founding of the

city; used by the Romans in reckoning dates, Rome founded in 753 B. C.)

The buildings and spaces of the ancient kingdoms of Mesopotamia and Egypt

(earliest date on the Egyptian calendar 4236 BC) to the fall of the Western

Roman Empire 476 AD; accretion and planning

Class five:

FEUDAL EUROPE TO THE AGE OF GOTHIC CATHEDRAL

"to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the mind can do."

An examination of competing and emerging forms, from 800 AD to1400 AD

Class six:

CONVENTION CENTER FIELD TRIP

Urban design, redevelopment and reinvestment, historic reuse and adaptation.

Class seven

RENAISSANCE TO INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Emerging technologies, materials and social and economic order allow for a

new esthetic to develop between 1400 & 1800

Class: eight

NOT JUST A MATTER OF STYLE, I

18TH & 19TH Century American Architectural styles and their historic context

Class nine:

NOT JUST A MATTER OF STYLE, II

20TH Century American Architectural styles and their historic context

Class ten:

LIBERTY PLACE FIELD TRIP

A) The high rise as form and B) visit style sites.

Class eleven:

DOYLESTOWN SATURDAY FIELD TRIP

A sense of place, a model neo traditional and smart growth and an eccentric

house

Class twelve:

URBAN PLANNING and LAW

An examination of the basis for urbanization in the United States since 1890,

especially federal housing law since Franklin Roosevelt

Class thirteen:

URBAN DESIGN (beyond architecture)

Zoning, subdivision, development controls, planned unit development, neo

traditional new towns, garden cities, environmental concerns, the electronic

community

Class fourteen:

Begin NEWTOWN CHARRETTE

5,000-acre smart growth site

Class Fifteen:

Continue NEWTOWN CHARRETTE

Continue to work on the land use, transportation, and urban design plan

Class sixteen:

NEWTOWN CHARRETTE

Presentation of PLAN to jury