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México
Frida Kahlo
Distribution list
Bernice Nuhfer-Halten ,
Orlando Karam,
Mª Soledad Salazar,
Marietta Monaghan,
Jim McKee
Kami Anderson ,
Roger Soiset
Muhammad Obeidat,
Richard Bennett ,
Zvi Szafran ,
Alan Gabrielli ,
Julie Newell
Orlando Karam
Mª Soledad Salazar,
Marietta Monaghan,
Jim McKee
Roger Soiset
Muhammad Obeidat,
Richard Bennett Zvi Szafran Alan Gabrielli Julie Newell
2 comments:
Maymester 2008 Syllabus
The History of the Art and Architecture of Mexico City
3 hours C-2 credit
Professor Marietta Monaghan
Office Hours by appointment
Email: mmonagha@spsu.edu
Course Description:
This course is a part of a sequence designed as an historical survey of the history and theory of art and architecture in Mexico City. The time period covered will be from ancient civilizations of the pre-Columbian cultures through the Aztecs to the Spanish and on to the present day.
The course sequence moves beyond the literal, formalistic and physical realms of interpretation. It examines the relationships between art and architecture and other cultural discourses such as philosophy, aesthetics, science, religion, politics and technology. Its aim is to develop an understanding of how art and architecture are used to manifest the socio-cultural conditions of a given moment in aesthetic form. It lays the foundation for a techtonic understanding of the relationship between form and idea in the art and architecture of a place. It achieves this goal by first addressing both art and architecture as cultural artifacts, and second, by examining how that artifact transforms through time as a response to alterations in the surrounding cultural discourses listed above.
The history of architecture is presented as a collection of buildings, each of which is seen as a concrete solution to a given set of culturally-derived problems and issues. These buildings are seen as precedents, not to be analyzed only on the basis composition or aesthetic image, but rather as design solutions to complex socio-economic problems. History is here used as a didactic device to aid the design student in problem solving by presenting the student with examples of how architects have successfully transformed the intellectual concerns of their day into built form. Similarly, art, or the making of artifacts, is concerned with recording cultural and intellectual concerns related to the present or to historical situations, and sometimes projections of what may be hoped for the future. A proficiency in reading these communications between architect or artist and viewer is the goal of this course.
Course Requirements:
This course consists of short lectures and longer discussion sessions (preceptorials) held daily, sometimes in the classroom and frequently on locations outside the classroom. You are required to attend both the lectures and preceptorials. Attendance will be taken by sign-in sheet and is considered a part of your class participation grade. You are not allowed absences as the course requires your full participation for only two weeks. If you cannot attend because you are sick, you must make certain that someone lets the instructor know about it. Absences will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
You will be given reading assignments for the lectures and preceptorial discussions. The readings should be done prior to the lecture and discussion sessions. In addition to the readings you will be asked to do one small research project to be presented to the rest of the class and two site visit reports which are part of a larger paper on a subject to be determined during at least one meeting with the instructor before the trip. The illustrations are to be either original photos or drawings you make during the trip. The site visit reports are related to a subject of your choice, but the subject has to be OKed by the instructor.
You must have a SPSU webmail account and you must check your email at a minimum of once per day. This is the only way I have of alerting you to changes in assignments, class changes for bad weather, etc.
Textbooks:
The following texts are required for this course:
To be determined. May all be readings selected by the instructor and posted on the class website.
Assignments:
1. Topic presentations will be on a subject agreed upon before we leave the SPSU campus so that you may do research before the trip. The presentation will be before the class, on site, so that you may speak about the subject from your notes and the class will be required to take notes from the material you present. Presentations should be brief, about 15 minutes max. and the subject is related to the topic of your research paper. This presentation is 40% of the final grade.
2. Research papers are to be not less than 10 pages doubled spaced, excluding illustrations, on a subject to be determined in at least one meeting with the instructor before Maymester begins. The two site visit reports are used to flesh out the research you did before the trip and in the Universidad library. This paper is 50% of the final grade.
Tests:
No exams, but the grade is based on class participation, your presentation of your topic and the paper you will write and turn in on the last day.
Grading:
Your final grade will be calculated based on the following breakdown:
Class participation and attendance: 10%
Presentation of topic 40%
Final Paper 50%
Total 100%
The Expression of Mexican Native Culture in the Architecture of Mexico City.
Generating a Perceptive Graphic Argument from Observation
C-2 Credit -3 hours.
Professor Maria Soledad Salazar, Architecture Department SPSU
Building I.
Office Hours: M,W,F. 12:00 -2:00pm
Email: edadelsol@yahoo.com msalazar@spsu.edu ,
cell: 678.549.7224
Objectives:
1.To recognize architecture as a cultural expression that reflects a moment in time, space and the humanities of every society.
2.To teach students to create links between the expressions of historic Mexican native culture and the present within the context they observe while they are visiting Mexico D.F.
3.To educate the senses and sharpen a student’s perception of the world with an analytical eye.
4.To give students tools with which to analyze spatial, cultural and technological readings through a sequence of visits to historic sites and written reports.
Learning Outcomes
1.Demonstrate a holistic understanding of Mexican culture by analysis of aesthetic expressions.
2.Demonstrate the ability to observe and design; to propose an argument.
3.Demonstrate developed ability to analyze and extract what is insightful in the observation and in the sensory perception of the local culture.
4.Graphic and written demonstrations of the cultural elements that persist from the past to the present.
Course Description
This course is an immersion in Mexican Culture. Students will discuss the history, philosophy, aesthetics, science, religion, politics, etc., from past to the present in a built environment and they will be challenged to actively see, perceive and inhale almost intuitively, through contextual observation of the categories of composition (space, form, shape, surface, tone, color, …etc.), and identify what elements subsist from the past into the present through expression in graphic and written media.
Mexico DF synchronizes the fusion of multiple native and Hispanic cultures, because all coexist in the same place. This becomes a laboratory for students to understand the evolution of this unique Mexican aesthetic expression and compare how the native expression persists in a pure, mixed or developed manner thought the site visits. These include The 16th c. Templo Mayor Ruins, the 17th c. Basilica, a 18th c. Monastery, a Typical 18th c. Colonial House, a 18th c. Palace, The19th c. City Museum, an 19th c. Republican House, The 20th c. Anthropology Museum, 20th c. Art Deco House, a 21st c. Functionalist House, and a 21st c. Contemporary house.
Despite modernism and globalization, Mexican culture, Mexican architecture, and Mexican expression have a strong and consistent language. Students will be asked to design an observation, generating a thesis through a critical lens (the critical lens will be related to their own majors), to prove their thesis in a graphic and written argument demonstrating why they feel Mexican culture is so strong.
Course Requirements
The first class will be on May 1, 2009 (place TBD) at SPSU. In this meeting students will receive instructions about the philosophy of the course, operational issues and procedures. Students will receive a lecture at the Iberoamericana University every other day about the context of the site visit that will occur the next day. All 10 classes are mandatory – lectures at the University and at the site. Attendance will be taken at the beginning and end of every class session.
Assignments:
•Students’ on site written daily perceptions and graphic media (photography and hand drawings) are discussion material in the next class. From these discussions a thesis will be extracted for the final paper. Students will structure a thesis to support an observation of the persistent elements in Present Mexican Expression.
•Back in Atlanta, students will compose an 18”x24” collage poster demonstrating the thesis about the cultural evolution. This is due on May 29, 2009 at instructor’s office.
•All students are required to turn in a CD with high-quality documentation (scans) of class work at the end of the course on May 29, 2009. Failure to do so will result in an incomplete grade on the course.
•Grading:
Final grade will be calculated based on the following breakdown:
Class participation and attendance:5%
Everyday work 30%
Thesis statement and argument to sustain iterative observations of expression. 40%
Final Collage Poster 20%
CD scans 5%
Total 100%
Textbooks & Readings:
TBD.
COURSE MATERIALS
•Digital camera.
•unlined bound journal for note taking and sketching
•Wooden sketching pencils: 2B. & eraser.
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