Aims

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
Understand the range and the limits of an aesthetic approach to architecture,
Identify the historical moments linked with the emergence of aesthetic thought, identify its origins, its stages of development, its autonomy or its different cultural determinations,
Distinguish between aesthetics as a theoretical approach to artworks and an aesthetic as produced by works of art,
Give a close reading of several essential texts where an aesthetic approach is at issue.

Main themes

After situating the specific stakes of aesthetics, the course will review in an organized and succinct manner the major moments in aesthetic thought, from its origins to the most contemporary period.
By successive stages, the course will take up a number of the most useful aesthetic concepts and questions in regard to the discipline of architecture.
The course will investigate architecture's place in the field of aesthetics: does architecture resist, and if so how and to what degree? Does it dissolve into aesthetics, and if so how and to what degree? What properties of architecture may escape from aesthetic thought?

Content and teaching methods

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Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

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Other credits in programs