Reflect on an issue in contemporary architecture.
C.2. Essay (90%)
An essay of 2,000 words on a topic of your choice, following the guidelines outlined below. Subject: You should choose a subject bearing in mind the question of the relationship between architectural theory and practice. Your subject should reflect on an issue in contemporary architecture, interpreted in the broadest sense: your material can be modern, or centuries old, as long as your argument is meaningful for the present. While the choice of topic is free, you are required to focus on, and explore relationships between, the following:
A. A building or buildings: a single building or a part of a building, a group, street, city etc.; a building type, architectural tradition, period, movement; the work of a particular architect etc. Your choice of building(s) does not have to be monumental: you can just as well choose a bicycle shed as Lincoln Cathedral, even if Nikolaus Pevsner did say ‘A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture’ (first line of An Outline of European Architecture).
B. An idea or idea(s): a concept, notion, theory, philosophy, world-view (ascribable to an individual, to a group, or to a tradition). This may be specifically architectural (truth to materials, Renaissance theories of proportion, Le Corbusier’s idea of the object type etc.) or from elsewhere in the realms of culture (Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, Neo-Platonism, Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticism’ etc.). You should choose something small and manageable, both for the building and the idea/subject. If you take on a whole tradition and a whole philosophy, then it is probably wise to reflect on them through one specific building and writing. In the course of your essay you must: a. describe the building(s) b. explain the idea(s) c. explore relationships between the two.