Liberal Arts

American Vernacular Architecture

Course No. ACD344.1  Credits: 3

This class will take a cultural perspective to the architectural and design traditions of the United States. The primary emphasis will be on the domestic environment and its furnishing, though church and civic buildings will play their less part in the story. European antecedents and elite architecture will be included, of course, but we will pay particular attention to the vernacular traditions of various ethnic groups (or cultural regions) and the way in which these traditions adapted and accommodated the above influences, in both architecture and its furnishings. (Based on this historical knowledge, students will have the option of designing housing or other products for recent immigrant groups in the United States.) This course will follow these traditions into the modern world with attention to the development of suburbs as a social phenomenon, and of Craftsman, Prairie, Art Deco and Populous styles (the look and life of America in the '50's and '60's from tailfins and TV dinners to Barbie dolls and fallout shelters, to my own tract house childhood.) Visual Culture Emphasis course. 3 credits.