This lecture course examines the intersection between the multiple experiences of modernity and architectural production, following two guiding premises. The first one is that modernity does not originate in one particular point or place, but rather is the result of complex entanglements that result in different experiences depending on location and context. The second one is that these experiences stem from a negotiation with power that is in direct conversation with the design of space. Thus, we use formal analysis–the spatial organization of buildings, site plans, and other spaces–as an active component to understand these multiple modernities.

Following these premises, each lecture takes on a specific theme that participates in the production of modernity–a technology, a building type, a construction material, or a cultural moment–and traces its consequences in the built environment in different sites around the world. At the same time, we balance this extended scope with close formal analysis of specific buildings and sites, to understand how architectural production contributes, redirects, or pushes back against these transformations. Furthermore, we examine the built environment at multiple scales and the possibility of its production by multiple authors. In doing so, we problematize notions of agency and authorship in cultural production, and learn from many forms of spatial agency.

The first half of the semester focuses on notions of otherness from broad transnational processes to the space of the body. We trace networks of colonial trade and the spaces they engendered, from the plantation to the quilombo. We examine the materials and programs prompted by the expansion of the railroad and modernism’s shifting relationship with ornament and surface. We explore the kitchen as a site of both community and labor, and the multiple repercussions of World War II in architectural discourse and production. We follow the effects of petro-urbanism from the highway to suburbia, as well as the landscapes of extraction this phenomenon prompts in oil producing countries. Architecture’s attention to the environment is manifested through different reactions, from discussions on the notion of the tropics to the propagation of the curtain wall. We trace the results of developmentalism and the global 1968 moment, as conclude by thinking about neoliberalism and reflecting about the presence of history in our contemporary moment.
The course is not meant to be comprehensive. Rather, we balance the extended scope of global networks with close examination of specific case studies, objects, and sites. Ultimately, the course expands the actors, sites, materials, and conversations that participate in the construction of architecture’s multiple modernities.

In addition to the lectures, all students are required to attend a weekly one-hour discussion section led by an assigned Teaching Fellow. Students are graded on attendance and participation, one section facilitation, and four exams or assignments.

Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This course will meet for the first time on Tuesday, September 2nd.