Session	Dates	Price
Fall Semester 2008 - Palazzo Rucellai - Architecture	August 27 - December 14, 2008	$12,995
Fall Semester 2008 - Palazzo Rucellai - Liberal Arts	August 27 - December 14, 2008	$12,995

Full Description

Course Description

The goal of the course goal is to teach students a method to understand, analyse and evaluate a city/site and its context. The intention is to produce tools that will be useful and applicable in Architectural Design and in professional life. The course will focus on Florence as a living city rather than an open air museum for tourists. It will help the students to read and understand the context of the city beyond the monuments. As architects we never draw on blank sheets of paper; hidden lines - sometimes more, sometimes less - are always present. This course will provide students with an approach as well as with the basic tools to recognize those hidden lines. During this semester we will cultivate the experience of looking at architecture with a different eye, focusing on the invisible links and relations between things. Le Corbusier used to say “…one obelisque: not architecture. Two obelisques: architecture!” Using Florence and its built history as a case study, we will explore the various meaning of context: urban context, landscape and geography, social and human environment, historical processes and stratified layers.
Architecture in context is about process, ideas, programs and passion in facing unknown contexts even more than about final products. In your work, at desk crits, and during presentations instructor and crits will be looking for evidence that you are searching and exploring the context as something new and that you listen to and respond constructively to feedback and advices from teachers and peers.

Course descriptions may be subject to occasional minor modifications at the discretion of the instructor.

Textbooks

· Zucconi G. " Florence: an architectural guide", Venice: Arsenale Editrice, 1995
· Fei S., Gobbi Sica G., Sica P. " Florence: an outline of urban history" Firenze: Alinea, 1995
· AA.VV. Firenze e dintorni. Guide Rosse. Touring Editore,1983
· Rossi A. “The architecture of the city”, Oppositions books,1984
· Tafuri, M. "History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985" Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989
· G.Caniggia, G.L.Maffei “Interpreting basic building” Firenze: Alinea, 2001
· Giovanni Fanelli, Firenze, Le città nella storia d’Italia Ed. Laterza (for maps)
· R.Wittkover “Architectural principles in the age of humanism” The Norton Library,1971

During orientation at the Institute, students will receive a list of textbooks they are required to purchase. Students should not purchase any texts before orientation.