The relationship of architecture and law runs far deeper than the regulatory strictures of building codes or zoning ordinances. Both architecture and law are humanistic disciplines that shape the contours of societies in ways beyond their instrumental or professional applications. They fashion judgments and values, define jurisdictions and transgressions; they invent and maintain cultural imaginaries, sponsor and constrain techniques and practices. Seen in an expansive historical view, architecture and law have long maintained a mutual engagement in the public sphere and in disciplinary discourse.

This reading seminar will explore the myriad manifestations of legal thought, practices, and objects that occur within architectural discourse, and, reciprocally, the many appearances of architecture within law and legal discourse. Each week, the seminar will read across a specific theme to discern and evaluate the circumstances and consequences of a particular relationship of architecture and law. Themes will include property, code, jurisdiction, taxation, precedent, human rights, the rights of nature, copyright, measurement, and other topics across a range of physical and social scales.

The seminar will parallel the Temporal Commons research platform, and therefore issues of design, temporality, and change in the relationship of architecture and law will be of particular interest. The seminar is open to doctoral and masters degree students (and undergraduates with the permission of the instructor). Students may enroll either for 12 units (to take the class as a seminar with a required research paper) or for 6 units (to take the class as a workshop with one required presentation).

This course uses the Mediterranean Sea as a framework for exploring early modern cities under Islamic and Christian rule. We look at key cities – Venice, Istanbul, Aleppo, Granada, Rabat-Salé, and others – tracing contacts between them, and discovering parallels and differences in urban form and architecture. Themes include dialogues with antiquity; religious complexes as urban design; social life and public space; trade and commerce; impacts of disasters and diasporas. We also consider wider global connections such as the intertwined histories of coffee, sugar, and slaves. 

A critical introduction to Islamic heritage in Spain, focusing on key surviving monuments and their complex, often contested afterlives. Each provides a window onto the dynasty that built it, with a range of ideological agendas, construction techniques, and mnemonic devices that track across the Mediterranean from Syria, Palestine, the Maghrib, and beyond. Along with North African exemplars, these structures represent a unique, western Islamic idiom that had a lasting impact on Spanish architecture.

Following defeat of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, Islam was gradually banished from the peninsula – yet these monuments survived, openly or in disguise. Their transformations tell intriguing stories about Spaniards’ evolving views of the Islamic past. In this course we supplement historical sources, studies and building/site analysis with theoretical readings on time, memory, and agency in architecture. We explore hybrid methodologies for overcoming archival silences and teasing out new narratives, using the building as the primary text.

Seminar on a selected topic in critical theory. Requires original research and presentation of oral and written report.

Critical examination of major developments in European, Asian, and American art from 1940 to the present. Surveys the mainstream of art production but also examines marginal phenomena (feminism, identity politics, AIDS activism, net art) that come to change the terms of art's engagements with civic culture. Visits to area art museums and writing assignments develop skills for visual analysis and critical writing.

Studies the interrelationship of theory, history, and practice. Looks at theory not as specialized discourse relating only to architecture, but as touching on many issues, whether they be cultural, aesthetic, philosophical, or professional. Topics and examples are chosen from a wide range of materials, from classical antiquity to today.