Course Details

Course offered Spring 2016

HONORS 212 C: Spatial Stories: Architecture as Form and Fiction (A&H)

HONORS 212 C: Spatial Stories: Architecture as Form and Fiction (A&H)

SLN 14933 (View UW registration info »)

Louisa Iarocci (Architecture)
Phone: 206-221-6046
Email: liarocci@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 25 students

Honors Credit Type

All built space begins as a fiction, the telling of a story that is translated into tangible physical form- taking shape in brick and mortar, and concrete and glass. Architecture becomes the setting for multiple stories for its occupants and observers, a means of seeing, experiencing and representing the world. This seminar explores the spatial stories told by architecture, in the ways built environments exist as more than physical artifacts but as a series of events, moments and impressions in time and place. We will study primary texts and their related monuments that range from the ancient to modern, like the Epic of Gilgamesh (ca 2100 BCE) and the Mesopotamian cities of Ur and Babylon, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and the Gothic manor house, and Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor’s, Batman: Death by Design (2012) and Gotham City/New York. Readings by intellectual theorists on spatial thinking such as Michel de Certeau and Neil Leach will aid us in drawing out thematic relationships that will include origin stories and myths of destruction, nature and territory, heroes and ghosts, and sacrifice and desire.

The class will also require direct engagement with the environment, integrating field trips within the city of Seattle. Students will be encouraged to experiment with visual and verbal methods of inquiry for understanding space, creating a class blog for sharing their views and producing a personal sketchbook with writings, drawings and images as an instrument of critical inquiry. Students will acquire a vocabulary for understanding the built environment as a setting and as an agent in telling stories – and for appreciating architecture not just as a physical artifact but as a social and perceptual construct.