ARCH-557D Genealogies of Program

3 Credits

This seminar will investigate contemporary theories of the architectural program as a complex and paradoxical set of ideas. Beginning as a reaction to early modernist functionalist doctrines where form was thought of as a direct expression of a building's use, a culture of inquiry beginning in the 1960s sought to reposition program through theories of indeterminacy and excess. The seminar establishes a field of complementary and competing theories of program-from the narrative and diagrammatic to the organizational and informational-that is by no means complete or exhausted. Replete with a rich and enigmatic catalogue of projects, each week will explore a different thread of programmatic thought through the lens of architectural production.