The Prompt:
A survey course like this, which covers architecture and urbanism throughout the world over a substantial portion of human history, presents many challenges. Chief among them is the fact that it is simply not possible to cover everything in only a dozen or so lectures over the course of a single semester. While the works selected for our course reflect a wide range of cultures and building types, there are, admittedly, many other cities and buildings that got left out. This final assignment is an opportunity for us to collectively address omissions.
Write an essay that argues for the inclusion of a building, city, or landscape in a future version of our course.
The key task for the final paper is to convince its readers. Your essay should of course provide the history your selected building, city, or landscape and describe its key components. But more importantly, your paper must explain why your topic deserves to be included in a survey course on the history of global architecture. Somewhere in your paper – maybe in the introduction and/or your conclusion – tell us what makes your selected site worthy of study. What is the rationale behind your proposal?
For example, does your building/city/landscape…
exist in a part of the world that we did not cover in this course?
exemplify an architectural movement that was left out from our syllabus?
pose an important thematic question or historical problem that we did not address in class?
fill a gap in the type of people the course considered?
make use of a particular building technology that we did not explore in class?
tell us something new and exciting about the built environment?
argue against a historical narrative introduced in class?
These are of course merely suggestions – you should feel free to make your own case for your chosen topic.
Paper Format:
The final essay must be between 1,000~1,200 words in length.
The final paper must be accompanied by at least three (3) images, which have captions below them. (The captions will not be counted towards the final word-count of the paper.)
The final paper must include a full bibliography in the Chicago Manual of Style format.
In the final paper, any ideas, phrases, or data that are not your own must be given citations in foot-notes.
Last Completed Projects
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