Images have, until recently, been the foundation of architectural practice. They have served as the tools for developing design and the medium for representing buildings to design partners, clients and to the public. But architecture was not always prepared with images and as images gained importance their character and the roles they played varied significantly over time. It may even be inaccurate to call the digital models produced today either images or representations, maybe "simulation" is a better term. So architectural images are anything but a stable category.

This seminar will look at examples of buildings and the modeling systems associated with them from different historical moments between the thirteenth and the 21st century with the idea of examining the way different architectures and intellectual cultures demand different kinds of representation, and the way those images condition thinking about architecture, the process of design development, and the form of buildings. It will ask whether imaging should be considered a technology that drove change in architecture and examine the historical roots within the discipline of architecture of contemporary modeling systems.

The seminar is designed to take advantage of the skills of both designers and historians and projects will be geared to the interests of individual participants. Students may choose a research topic in consultation with one of the instructors or this project:
Prepare a well composed, synthetic board, 2’ by 2’, that presents the most significant things about a design project of your own or of a building or urban complex that you analyze. Use at least three different methods of representation in the composition. Alternately, you can create a “portfolio”, like the “Estampas” of Juan de Herrera, or a section of Corbusier’s Oeuvre Complet that you will hear about in the session “Publications” on November 9. (Again, use at least three different methods of representation.) Whichever of these alternative you choose, accompany your submission with a short essay that discusses your reasons for making the board or the portfolio in the way you did and how the means of representation and modeling that you chose define the character and also the limits of the project (that is, not the project but the representation). The clarity of the conceptual arguments is the most import component of this assignment.