4.

646 Research Programs in Modern Architecture - Spring 2013

Hours arranged: 3-0-6 normal hours for MArch students; 3-0-9 for SMArchS or PhD

SYLLABUS

rev. 2/27/13

W 9-12 Room 5-216

Limited enrollment:
~16 students MArch 3 person teams
SMArchS or PhD Individual reports
~ 6 reporting sessions
Instructor: Stanford Anderson, Room 3-307 soa@MIT.edu
TA: Michael Kubo Michael Kubo <kubo@MIT.EDU>
OFFICE HOURS: In both cases, by e-mail appointments
"Research Programs in Modern Architecture" is a seminar presenting an opportunity
to jointly explore architectural positions developed in modern times, whether by
individual architects or by groups of architects/researchers.
Imre Lakatos cast the epistemology of science as a system of competing research
programs and the professor in this seminar has offered a parallel construction in the
discipline of architecture. Both of those efforts will serve as the introduction to the
seminar. Participants in the seminar need not follow that model, but will be asked to
construct an understanding of some notable position within the discipline in modern
times (referring mainly to the twentieth century, but with allowance for excursions
into the late-nineteenth century or our own century).
Paper topics will be established jointly in an effort to have pairs, or still larger
numbers, of papers inform one another and the general inquiry.
See separate sheet to assist in choosing presentation topics.
In the interests of the seminar format, enrollment is limited.
Requirements: Faithful reading of assignments; devoted attendance and
participation. At least one oral report in the first half of the term. Major class
presentation in latter part of the term, allied with a final paper due on the last day of
class (if registered for nine units, ~3500-4000 words; if 12 units, ~5-6000 words.
Grading criteria: Class participation as above, 30%; major class presentation, 30%;
final paper, 40%.
See 4.646 CALENDAR for DUE DATES OF REQUIRED WORK
Meetings:
3-4 Philosophical background
3-4 Archl research program
7-5 Student reports
1 Closing session

SCHEDULE AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

1

2/6

Introduction

Assignments for next meeting:

>S Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, in Conjectures and Refutations
(London: Routledge, 1963), 33-65.
Ignacio

2
R Imre Lakatos. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Philosophical
Papers. 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
>S Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, I:8101; especially 3, 31-52.
1 & 2: Fallibilism versus Falsificationism
3 & 4: A Methodology of Scientific Research
Programmes
Juan
2

2/13

2/18

Karl Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery

Imre Lakatos, Method of Scientific Research Programs

Lists of alternative projects due

Assignments for next meeting:

>S Peter Eisenman, Aspects of Modernism: Maison Dom-ino and the Self-Referential
Sign, Oppositions 15/16 (Winter/Spring 1979), 118-128; reprinted pp. 188-198
in K. Michael Hays, ed., Oppositions Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural
Press, 1998).
>S Stanford Anderson. "Architectural Design as a System of Research Programmes,"
Design Studies (London), V (July 1984), 146-150, and "Architectural Research
Programmes in the Work of Le Corbusier," Design Studies, V (July 1984), 151158; reprinted as "Architectural Design as a System of Research Programs," pp.
490-505 in K. Michael Hays, ed., Architecture | Theory | since 1968 (Cambridge:
The MIT Press, 1998).
>S Stanford Anderson, "Thinking in Architecture," pp. 72-86 in Esa Laaksonen, ed.,
Ptah 08 Yearbook. Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Academy, 2009.
3

2/20

Le Corbusier and research programs

Assignments for next meeting:

R Imre Lakatos. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Philosophical
Papers. 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
>S History of Science and Its Rational Reconstruction, I:102-138.
R Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1962; 2. ed. 1967.
>S II-V on Normal Science and paradigms, pp. 10-51.
>S Shapere, Dudley. The Paradigm Concept [review comparing Lakatos and
Kuhn], Science 172 (May 1971), 706-709.
>S SA, Bauhaus University paper
4

2/27
Lakatos, Rational Reconstruction - Internal history; Kuhn;
Elkana
Also: Ignacio on his research area

Assignments for next meeting:

>S Beatty, Barbara. "The Dilemma of Scripted Instruction: Comparing Teacher
Autonomy, Fidelity and Resistance in Froebelian Kindergarten, Montessori,
Direct Instruction, and Success for All," Teachers College Record, 113:3 (March
2011), 395-430.
>S Gutman, Marta. The Physical Spaces of Childhood, in Paula S. Fass, ed., The
Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World (London/New York:
Routledge, 2012), 249-266.

3/4

Bibliographies for assigned projects due

3/6

Late afternoon
Preschool/Primary Education
Guest: Professor Barbara Beatty, Wellesley College

3
Assignments for next meeting:
>S Worpole, Ken. Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in TwentiethCentury European Culture (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), chapters 3, Live
Out of Doors as Much as You Can: The Architecture of Public Health, 49-68, and
4, Bring the Landscape into the House: Housing for the New Society, 69-85.
>S Bryder, Linda. Wonderlands of Buttercup, Clover and Daisies: Tuberculosis and
the Open-Air School Movement in Britain, 1907-39, in Roger Cooter, ed., In the
Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940 (London/New York:
Routledge, 1992), 72-95.
>S Sola-Morales, Ignacio. Review of Giorgio Grassi, La architettura come mestiere
[Milan, 1980], Oppositions 23 (Winter 1981), 140-150.

3/11 Outline or Abstract for assigned project due

6

3/13

Sun/Air Open-Air Schools + Rossi

Assignments for next meeting to be selected by Ignacio

7

3/20

Miralles: Study/Play - Ignacio Duclos

Assignments for next meeting - to be selected by Michael

Spring vacation
4/3

Enhanced Outline or Abstract for all later reports due

4/3

Schools Post-war US
Michael Kubo

Assignments for next meeting selections by Juan and Ignacio

9

4/10

Cemeteries
US/Northern Europe Juan
Mediterranean Rossi, Miralles Ignacio

Assignments for next meeting:

Loos items (with >S designation)
R Loos, Adolf. Ins Leere gesprochen. Paris: Georges Crs, 1921, and Innsbruck:
Brenner Verlag, 1922. Translated as Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays
1897-1900. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982.
>S Introduction, by Aldo Rossi, viii-xiii; Mens Fashion [1898], 10-14;
Plumbers, 44-49; The Principle of Cladding, 66-69; Ladies Fashion, 98103; The Poor Little Rich Man, 124-127.
>S -----. Architecture, Midgrd I, 1 (1987), 49-56. [Mallgrave translation] Followed
by J. Duncan Berry, Looss Primitivism, 57-61. [commentary on Architecture]

>S Timms, Edward. Faade and Function: The Alliance between Karl Kraus and
Adolf Loos, 9H, 6 (1983), 9-14.
>S Rossi, Aldo. Introduction to "Adolf Loos 1870-1933," Casabella 233 (Nov. 1959),
4-12.
>S Anderson, Stanford. "Critical Conventionalism in Architecture," Assemblage 1
(1986), 6-23.
-----. Critical Conventionalism: The History of Architecture, Midgrd I, 1 (1987),
33-47. [Loos; quasi-autonomy]
-----. "Sachlichkeit and Modernity, or Realist Architecture," in Harry Mallgrave,
ed., Otto Wagner: Reflections on the Raiment of Modernity. Santa Monica,

4
CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1993, 322360.
10
4/17 Adolf Loos
Reference works
R Gravagnuolo, Benedetto. Adolf Loos: Theory and Works. New York: Rizzoli, 1982.
R Mnz, Ludwig, and Gustav Knstler. Adolf Loos: Pioneer of Modern Architecture.
New York: Prager, 1966.
R Risselada, Max. Raumplan versus Plan Libre: Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, 19191930. Delft: Delft University Press, 1988.
Assignments for next meeting:
R George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and
its Challenge to Western Thought (NY: Basic Books, 1999)
>S, pp. 16-136.
S> Goldhagen, Sarah. Aaltos Embodied Rationalism, Stanford Anderson, Gail
Fenske and David Fixler, eds. Aalto and America, forthcoming from Yale
University Press, London.
11

4/24

Aalto/Scandinavia Sanatoria

12

5/1

Juan Jofre Embassy Design

13

5/8

Ignacio Duclos Probabalistic Fields of Action

Assignments for next meeting:

S Anderson, Stanford. "Public Institutions: Louis I. Kahn's Reading of Volume Zero,"
Journal of Architectural Education, XLIX, 1 (September 1995), 10-21.
S -----. "Dance without Effort or Fatigue," from Anderson, ed., Eladio Dieste: Innovation
in Structural Art. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
14

5/15

Louis I. Kahn and Final Discussion