Postgraduate Course: Studies in Early Modern Architecture and Science (ARHI11016)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines research on the rapport between architecture and what is now known as science, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. By critically examining early modern buildings, texts, instruments, and graphic art, the course reveals how architecture's exchanges with astronomy, anatomy, archaeology, botany, geology, and physics conditioned the emergence of modern forms of architectural and scientific knowledge. It also considers how historians in recent decades have variously understood the relationships between early modern architecture and science. |
| Course description |
Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, exchanges between architecture and what is now called science multiplied and intensified. This course probes the intersections between architectural culture and the disciplines of natural philosophy during the early modern period, from astronomy, to anatomy, archaeology, botany, geology, and physics. The class will examine building projects, treatises, scientific instruments, prints, and drawings to understand how architects and natural philosophers traded ideas about measurement, mechanics, and the nature of research. It will also scrutinise how historians in recent decades have evaluated the exchanges between early modern architecture and science. Through such investigations, students will uncover how interactions between experts in architecture and the sciences shaped modern attitudes about the ways in which interdisciplinary knowledge is formed.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 34,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
152 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Formative Assessments
Presentation:
Each student will present one reading from the Syllabus to the entire class during the week in which that reading is scheduled to be discussed. The ten-minute presentation will 1) review the content of the article or chapter and 2) critically assess the thesis, methods, and conclusions of the text. The presenter will thereafter lead a brief discussion with the entire class and answer questions that arise from the presentation. Constructive, verbal feedback from the Instructor will follow the presentation in a private meeting during Office Hours.
Class Participation:
Students should prepare for class by completing the required readings. During in-class discussions, students should interact both with the Instructor and with each other. Feedback will be provided during the post-presentation meeting.
Summative Assessments
Log: 40% of course grade
Each student will write a log with evaluations of each week's readings and/or seminar discussion. This log will include a roughly 300-word log entry for every week. For each entry, the student can choose to respond critically to one of the weekly readings or to develop a line of inquiry covered in class discussions. Students should submit the completed logbook of around 3,000 words during the Examination period, simultaneously with the research paper. Students are encouraged to post drafts of log entries as blog posts in the course blog.
Research Paper: 60% of course grade
Each student will write a 3,000-word research paper focusing on one of the themes presented during the course. Students can elect to compose either a literature review of one of the weekly themes or an original research paper on a more specific topic, i.e. individual monument(s) or architect(s). Primary sources should be examined and included as supporting evidence (in the case of a literature review, the primary sources are the scholarly texts). Students should clear the selected topic with the Instructor by mid-semester. The research paper is due during the Examination period, simultaneously with the log.
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| Feedback |
Students will receive written feedback within 15 working days. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a comprehensive and integrated understanding of how the history of architecture intersects with the history of science in the early modern period, including the characteristics, terminologies, and norms of such interactions.
- Apply knowledge, skills, practices and thinking in the history of exchanges between architecture and science to specialised research.
- Present or convey, formally and informally, information about the histories of architecture and science to peers as well as more informed specialists.
- Show initiative and leadership in contributing to new thinking in research on early modern architecture and science.
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Reading List
Pérez Gómez, Alberto. Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1983).
Payne, Alina Alexandra. The Telescope and the Compass: Teofilo Gallaccini and the Dialogue between Architecture and Science in the Age of Galileo (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2012).
Long, Pamela O.. "Architecture and the Sciences." In Companion to the History of Architecture, ed. Alina A. Payne, 1-29 (Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2017).
Gerbino, Anthony, and Stephen Johnston. Compass and Rule : Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England, 1500-1750 (London, Oxford, New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2009).
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. A critical understanding of principle and specialised theories, concepts, and principles related to early modern architectural and scientific discourse
2. A knowledge and critical understanding of recent developments in the literature on early modern science and architecture
3. Ability to communicate skilfully with peers and specialist audiences.
4. A critically-informed familiarity with contemporary issues in the study of early modern architecture and science
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| Keywords | Architecture,early modern,science,empiricism,knowledge |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Elizabeth Petcu
Tel: (0131 6)50 2619
Email: Elizabeth.Petcu@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Fanny To
Tel: (0131 6)51 5773
Email: oto@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
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