This course looks comparatively at European architecture and the locations of its diffusion in the first period of modern colonization, 1500-1800. Examining European vernacular and monumental architecture along with that of the Americas and South Asia, the course will explore the processes through which architecture and urban planning from Europe replaced or elided indigenous forms. The status of colonial architecture as part of national heritage in the Americas, the Caribbean and other parts of the world colonized by European powers will be an important focus of critical analysis. Case studies will include the architecture of European capitals such as Rome, Madrid, and London, along with colonized centers like Tenochtitlán/Mexico City, Havana, Montréal, New York, Cuzco, and Goa.

The concepts of vernacular and monumental architecture will be introduced through a survey of building traditions in Europe, the Americas and South Asia along with an on-site field study of vernacular architecture in Rome. Proceeding roughly in chronological order, lectures then examine new architectural and cultural developments in Europe and how they were transmitted to fortified outposts and settlements throughout the Atlantic and the coasts of India. Topics that will be treated include the architecture of fortifications; the cultural translation of Christian religious architecture in colonial contexts; plantation architecture and spaces for enslaved peoples; urban planning and the construction of colonial capitals; and classicism as the style representing colonial powers.

•the ability to “read” architecture: identifying building materials and methods; elements of style and structure

•the ability to identify different vernacular building traditions in the regions under study

•an understanding of classical architecture and the ways in which it was used in the colonial context

•familiarity with and understanding of the critical literature on writing about colonized spaces and new approaches, including theories of cross-cultural exchange and hybridity

•an ability to express and formulate ideas about architecture

PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE. The full schedule with required readings and assignment dates will be available on the course Moodle page at the start of the semester.

Week 1: Course Introduction and Discussion of Vernacular and Monumental Architecture

Students are introduced to essential architectural concepts through vernacular and monumental forms and to understand the built environment as a complex and hybrid entity that cannot be reduced to a single thread of architectural knowledge. Conditions permitting, we take a walk through Trastevere to look at late medieval examples of the Roman vernacular.

Week 2: Architectural Traditions in Meso and South America: Case Studies

Lectures will focus upon monumental and vernacular structures of Inca, Aztec and Mayan Empires and explore extant vernacular architecture.

Week 3: Architectural Traditions in North America and in South Asia: Case Studies

Following the example of last week’s lectures, these two lectures will examine some imperial architecture in South Asia (India), but also explore the problem of studying non-permanent settlements and archaeological sites, such as those of Native cultures like the Cherokee in North America.

Week 4: Architectural Traditions in Europe: Case Studies

The lectures will look broadly at vernacular traditions, especially for houses, in Western Europe, such as those in Flanders, the Netherlands, the British Isles, France and the Italian peninsula. They will also explore the question of style and building methods of the later Middle Ages (Gothic and Romanesque).

Week 5: Italian Renaissance architecture and its dissemination in Europe: from model to treatise

The lectures this week survey the transformation of architecture according to classical principles during the 16^th century and how this architectural knowledge was disseminated from Italy through the rest of Europe.

Week 6: Fortifications and urban planning

This week’s lectures look at treatises on civil architecture, a central concern of architectural theory and patronage in the 16^th century, and how defensive models were constructed in the new points of colonial settlement in places like Havana, St. Augustine (Florida) and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Week 7: The Catholic Reformation and Religious Architecture

The lectures explore the transformation of church and conventual architecture in the wake of the Catholic Reformation, examining important examples in Italy (especially Rome) and in Spain.

Week 8: Discussion and Review / Midterm Examination

Week 9: Catholic Missions in South and Central America: Religious Architecture

This week treats churches and convents established in Central and South America, with particular attention to the ways in which Christian architecture often occupied the sites of religious spaces in order replace indigenous spiritual practices.

Week 10: Religion and Commerce in the Caribbean and in South Asia

Following upon last week’s examination of Christian architecture, this week’s lectures take up the nexus of religion and commercial enterprise in colonial settlements of the Caribbean and South Asia.

 Week 11: British Settlements in North America

Explores the exportation of vernacular British architecture to colonial settlements of the Atlantic coast of North America and ways in which the knowledge of native peoples informed new construction.

Week 12: French and Dutch Settlements in North America

This week’s lectures survey French and Dutch settlements, with their particular vernacular architectural vocabulary, to places like Manhattan, Pennsylvania, Montréal, and Louisiana

Week 13: Plantation Architecture in the Americas and the Caribbean

This week we will look critically at the various forms of plantation architecture that emerged in the Americas and Caribbean, including recent studies of housing created for enslaved people. It will also look at the reasons for the preservation of some of the sites.

Week 14: State Building and Architectural Form in North America

The lectures this week focus upon the forms of classical architecture imported from Europe as a means of representing the State, with special discussion of Thomas Jefferson as architect and the Italianate forms that were formative of U.S. national architectural identity.