Fall 2011 GSD 4408

SITUATING THE MODERN:

MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND VERNACULAR
TRADITIONS
Course information: Lecture, Mondays 2:00-5:00, Room Gund Hall
318
Instructor:
Sibel Bozdogan, sibelb@rcn.com
Office hours:
Mondays 10:00 -12:00 (by appointment-please
e-mail)
Course description:
One of the central and most profound questions of modernity since the
Enlightenment has been the tension between the presumed universalism
of modern scientific/technological rationality (civilization) and the
particularities of distinct places and traditions (culture). Anxieties about
the homogenizing or threatening effects of the former upon the latter
have informed different discourses of authenticity, regionalism and
identity in architecture and initiated the study, theorization and
appropriation of vernacular building traditions everywhere.
From the National Romanticism of late 19th century to Critical
Regionalism debates in post-WWII modernism, architectures ability to
evoke a sense of place, locality or cultural (and national) identity has
been valued as a form of resistance to the hegemony of supra-national
discourses such as imperial Neoclassicism and International Style
modernism respectively. Many 20th century architects and theorists have
also turned to the phenomenological, lyrical, aesthetic and/or
humanistic potentials of vernacular architecture as an antidote to the
sterility, cold rationalism and mechanical world-view of rationalism and
functionalism. Recent studies and revisionist histories of modern
architecture effectively show that, whether in the form of a romantic
search for identity, or a rationalist search for primitive origins,
vernacular traditions have always been a part of modern architecture.
This course offers a historical overview of modern architectures
relationship with vernacular traditions over the last century and
highlights the ambiguity of this relationship across a range of
different positions and practices from the critical and innovative
to the folkloric and the commercialized. Adopting a cross-cultural
framework that transcends the western/non-western binary, it focuses
on particular geographies (especially, but not limited to the
Mediterranean basin) that have been historically catalytic in the
development of vernacular modernisms and regionalist theories in
architecture. The broader pedagogical objectives of the course are: 1)

to address questions of cultural, regional and/or national identity that

were traditionally neglected by most accounts of modernism that
focus on the international character of modern technologies,
programs and aesthetic canons; 2) to question common assumptions
and received binary oppositions that have biased the theorizing of
vernacular architecture within the discipline and practice of
architecture (such as universal/ particular, modern/ traditional, high
culture/ low culture, global/ local and international /regional among
others) and 3) to inspire and invite critical and case-specific historical
research on architects and works that have contributed to these
debates.
Course Requirements:
The format of the course is lectures followed by the discussion of
selected texts and works. Course requirements include reading all the
assigned texts and actively participating in class discussions. One
student will lead the discussion every week and by Monday morning
latest, e-mail the class a short response essay for all the participants
to comment on in the class. A final paper (approx. 3000 words) is to
be presented in class and then submitted at the end of the semester.
Research topics are limited to in-depth studies of architectural works
(texts, projects, buildings) or institutional practices (relevant
exhibitions, publications, design schools etc.) that address the central
concerns of the course. They should be finalized in consultation with
the instructor and a one-page abstract with a preliminary bibliography
should be submitted by October 17. Course credit will be distributed
as follows:
Participation in all class discussions
20%
Written response essay(s)
20%
Abstract/ preliminary bibliography of the paper
10%
Final presentation and paper
50%

CLASS SCHEDULE:
The following shows weekly topics and a tentative list of relevant
readings (final selection of required readings to be confirmed weekly).
Each week, lecture notes, discussion points and further readings will
be posted on the course web site.
1. September 1 Introduction
Existential dilemmas of modernity: transience/ rootedness,
civilization/culture etc
Modernist architects interest in vernacular building traditions a
historical overview
2

[Course logistics/requirements]
Background Reading:
B.Huppauf and M.Umbach ed. Introduction, Vernacular Modernism:
Heimat,
Globalization
and the Built Environment, Stanford
University Press, 2005, pp.1-23
J.F.Lejeune and M.Sabatino, North versus South, J.F.Lejeune and
M.Sabatino eds., Modern
Architecture and the Mediterranean:
Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities, London
and New
York: Routledge, 2010, pp.1-12
2. September 12 National Romanticism and Vernacular
Architecture
Landscape in nationalist imaginary: ideas of heimat and human
geography in the 19th century
Vernacular against the classic; folk culture and arts & crafts against
industrial civilization
National Romanticism in Nordic countries, Germany and Central
Europe
Readings:
A.D.Smith, Legends and Landscapes in The Ethnic Origin of
Nations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986, pp.174-208
M.Umbach, The Deutscher Werkbund, Globalization and the
Invention of Modern
Vernaculars, in B.Huppauf and M.Umbach ed.
Vernacular Modernism: Heimat,
Globalization and the Built
Environment, Stanford University Press, 2005, pp.114-140
3. September 19 Modernism, Primitivism and the Vernacular
Role of ethnographic museums and folk exhibits in great exhibitions
Modernist search for genuine artifacts, simple forms and
uncontaminated cultures
The case of Le Corbusier: Voyage dOrient, 1911 and the Lart
decorative daujourdhui, 1925
Readings:
Le Corbusier, Journey to the East, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987 (Paris,
1966), pp.14-24 and
Confession in The Decorative Art of Today, Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1987 (Paris,
1925), pp.193-214
Francesco Passanti, The Vernacular, Modernism and Le Corbusier,
Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians, v.56, n.4,
December 1997, pp.438-451
Adrian Forty, Primitive: the word and concept in J.Odgers, F.Samuel
and A.Sharr eds.,
Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture,
London: Routledge, 2006, pp.3-14
3

4. September 26 Primitivism, German Expressionism and the

Orient
Expressionist critique of industrial West and the fascination with the
Orient
The case of Bruno Taut: Ex oriente lux, 1919; Houses and People of
Japan, 1938; Turkey 1936-38
Readings:
Bruno Taut, Ex Oriente Lux: a Call to Architects (1919) in C. and
T.Benton, Form and
Function, London: Crosby, Lockwood, Staples,
1975, pp.81-82
Bruno Taut, Houses and People of Japan, London: John Gifford, 1938
(Tokyo, 1937) excerpts
Esra Akcan, Bruno Tauts Translations out of Germany: Toward a
Cosmopolitan Ethics in
Architecture in J.F.Lejeune and M.Sabatino eds., Modern
Architecture and the Mediterranean: Vernacular Dialogues and
Contested Identities, London and New York:
Routledge, 2010,
pp.192-211
5. October 3 Interwar Modernism and the Mediterranean
North-South debate in modern architecture: machine versus tradition
Towards a lyrical modernism rooted in the classical and vernacular
roots of architecture
J.L.Sert, Mediterraneanism and the search for Catalan modernism in
Spain
Readings:
Benedetto Gravagnuola, From Schinkel to Le Corbusier: the myth of
the Mediterranean in Modern Architecture, J.F.Lejeune and
M.Sabatino eds., Modern Architecture and the
Mediterranean:
Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities, London and New York:
Routledge, 2010, pp. 14-39
Antonio Pizza, The Mediterranean: Creation and Development of a
Myth in A.Pizza ed.
J.LL.Sert Y El Mediterraneo, Ministry of
Development and Architects Association of
Catalonia, 1997, pp.1245 (Spanish and English)
Jean Francoise Lejeune, The Modern and the Mediterranean in
Spain in J.F.Lejeune and
M.Sabatino eds., Modern Architecture
and the Mediterranean: Vernacular Dialogues and
Contested
Identities, London and New York: Routledge, 2010, pp.64-93
6. October 10 No Class

7. October 17 Mediterranean Modernism and Colonial

Politics
[Abstracts/preliminary bibliographies due]
Italian rationalist architects and fascist politics: Mediterraneita and
Italianita
Italian colonial architecture in North Africa: appropriations of Arab
vernacular in Libya
French colonial modernism: Le Corbusier, Echochard and Poullion in
North Africa
Readings:
Michelangelo Sabatino, The Politics of Mediterraneita in Italian
Modernist Architecture,
J.F.Lejeune and M.Sabatino eds., Modern
Architecture and the Mediterranean: Vernacular
Dialogues and
Contested Identities, London: Routledge, 2010, pp.41-63
Brian McLaren, Casa Mediterranea, casa araba and primitivism in
the writings of Carlo
Enrico
Rava, The Journal of Architecture,
v.13, n.4, August 2008, pp.453-467
Sheila Crane, Mediterranean Dialogues: Le Corbusier, Fernand
Poullion and Roland
Simounet in J.F.Lejeune and M.Sabatino eds.,
Modern Architecture and the
Mediterranean: Vernacular
Dialogues and Contested Identities, London: Routledge, 2010,
pp.94-109
8. October 24 Nationalizing the Modern in Republican Turkey
Modernism and nation-building: dilemmas of identity on the margins
of Europe
Sedad Hakki Eldem and the construction/theorization of the Turkish
House
Readings:
Sibel Bozdogan, The Legacy of an Istanbul Architect in J.F.Lejeune
and M.Sabatino eds., Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean:
Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities,
London and New
York: Routledge, 2010, pp.130-146
Esra Akcan, Melancholy in Translation, Chapter 2 in Architecture in
Translation: Germany, Turkey and the Modern House, Durham: Duke
University Press, 2012 (forthcoming)
9. October 31 Modern Architecture and Regionalism in
America
Legacies from F.L.Wright and H.H.Richardson to San Francisco Bay
Region Style
Postwar debates: Lewis Mumfords regionalism against imported
International Style

Readings:
Lewis Mumford, The Regionalism of Richardson, in The South in
Architecture, New York:
Da Capo Press, 1967 (1941), pp.79-110;
Also reprinted in Roots of Contemporary American Architecture, New
York: Grove Press, 1959, pp.117-131
Liane Lefaivre and Alex Tzonis, Lewis Mumfords Regionalism in
Design Book Review, n.19, 1991, pp.20-25
Hilde Heynen, Anonymous Architecture as Counter-Image: Sybil
Moholy-Nagys Perspective on American Vernacular, The Journal of
Architecture, v.13/4, August 2008, pp.469-91
10. November 7 Revisionist Postwar Modernism and
Vernacular Architecture
Critical theory, counter-culture and renewed interest in vernacular
architecture
Environmental consciousness, alternatives, low-tech and anonymous
architecture
Critique of the profession (J.Jacobs); architecture without architects
(B.Rudofsky)
Readings:
Pietro Belluschi, Regionalism in Architecture, Architectural Record,
Dec.1955, v.118, n.6, pp.131139
James Stirling, Regionalism and Modern Architecture (1957),
reprinted in J.Oackman ed. Architecture Culture 1943-1968, New
York: Rizzoli, 1993, pp.242-248
Bernard Rudofsky, Preface, Architecture without Architects: a Short
Introduction to Non-Pedigreed
Architecture, New York:
Doubleday, 1964, pp.1-6
Felicity Scott, Bernard Rudofsky: Allegories of Nomadism and
Dwelling in S.Goldhagen
and R.Legault ed. Anxious
Modernisms, The MIT Press, 2000, pp.215-237
Andrea B.Guarneri, Bernard Rudofsky and the Sublimation of the
Vernacular, J.F.Lejeune
and M.Sabatino eds., Modern
Architecture and the Mediterranean: Vernacular Dialogues and
Contested Identities, London: Routledge, 2010, pp.230-249
11. November 14 From Tropical Modernism to Critical
Regionalism
Aesthetics of climate control: tropicalization of modernism in Latin
America/Caribbean
Theories and practices of (critical) regionalism (Tzonis & Lefaivre)
Discourses of place, tectonics and phenomenological situatedness
(Frampton)

Readings:
Liane Lefaivre and Alex Tzonis, Critical Regionalism in M.Speaks
ed. The Critical Landscape, Rotterdam 010 Publishers, 1996,
pp.126-147
Alan Colquhoun, The Concept of Regionalism in G.B.Nalbantoglu
and C.T.Wong eds.
Postcolonial Spaces, NY: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1997, pp.13-23
Kenneth Frampton, Critical Regionalism Revisited: reflections on the
Mediatory Potential
of Built Form in B.Huppauf and M.Umbach
ed.Vernacular Modernism: Heimat,
Globalization and the Built
Environment, Stanford University Press, 2005, pp.193-197
12. November 21 Vernacular Forms as Identity Kits in the
Third World
Vernacular architecture as iconic images of national identity
Hasan Fathy in Egypt; Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka; Sedad Eldem in
Turkey
Postmodernism, tourism and theme parks: the commodification of
vernacular imagery
Readings:
Panaiyota Pyla, Hasan Fathy Revisited: Postwar Discourses on
Science, Development and
Vernacular Architecture, Journal of
Architectural Education, 2007, pp.28-39
Timothy Mitchell, Making the Nation: The Politics of Heritage in
Egypt in N.Alsayyad ed.
Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing
Heritage: Global Norms and Urban Forms in the Age of
Tourism,
London: Routledge, 2001, pp.212-239
Anoma Pieris, Modernism at the Margins of the Vernacular:
Considering Valentin
Gunasekara in Grey Room, n.28, Summer, 2007, pp.56-85

13. November 28 Student Presentations

14. December 5 Student Presentations
FINAL PAPERS ARE DUE MONDAY DECEMBER 19