Buildings, Texts, and Contexts

Introduces the formulation of architectural principles – what Rudolf Wittkower called the \’apparatus of forms\’ – by means of selected case studies from Brunelleschi to Bernini. Treats such topics as antiquity, humanism, the architectural treatise, the dome, the centrally planned church, the villa, patronage and papal urbanism as well as theoretical expositions of beauty, symmetry, ratio, harmonic proportion, the orders, perspective and orthographic projection. The contemporary critical reception of the period, which will also be considered, renders the content of the course relevant to the present.