ARCH 143 - Settlements, Sanctuaries, and Cities

This course introduces buildings, cultural practices, and worldviews of nomadic and sedentary societies across a broad range of geographies and periods. Beginning with the earliest shrines and cities that appear in the Middle East, the Far East, and India, and exploring settlements in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas up to the year 1000 CE. This course examines the origins of sacred and civic architectures in the landscapes and environments in which they emerge, moving across continents to recognize patterns of life, concepts of order and conduct, symbols, rituals, and myths embodied in our building practices and settlement patterns. Analysis in this course foregrounds the relationships to the lands that inform cultures, the formation and movement of societies, their temporary and permanent constructions, looking at the ecological and social bearings of cities as spaces of power, sanctuary, and exchange.