IDEAS THAT SHAPED MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Vladimir Kulić

DESCRIPTION: Why does the built-world around us look the way it does? What are the ideas that have influenced it and where do they come from? What are the challenges that architecture faces today? This lecture series will trace the most important concepts, debates, and controversies that have shaped architecture and city building during the past two centuries. Each lecture will focus on a single unresolved question that is just as relevant today as it was two hundred years ago: How does the mode of production affect the aesthetics of buildings? How is history relevant for architecture? How can one express local identity in an increasingly globalized world? How can we make our cities more comfortable, beautiful and just? Each lecture will focus on the widely known practitioners and theorists—from Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright to Renzo Piano and Frank Ghery—but they will also draw attention to some less known, yet greatly significant figures, such as the Hungarian -Jewish architect Béla Lajta, the Uruguayan engineer Eladio Dieste, and the Serbian architect and theorist Bogdan Bogdanovic. We will discuss cutting edge structures—from the Crystal Palace and the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House and the Pompidou Center—as well as modest , local achievements charged with powerful meanings. All the lectures will be illustrated with a wealth of visual material—historical and contemporary photos, drawings, and occasional video-clips—and will draw on broad literary sources, from John Ruskin and Friedrich Engels to Tom Wolfe.

EIGHT LECTURES:

1. The Challenge of industrialization
   
2. Historicism: Looking back, looking forward
   
3. The invention of urbanism
   
4. An architecture of social justice
   
5. The imperative of function
   
6. The ever higher tech
   
7. Regional or global?
   
8. The challenge of sustainability

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Dr. Vladimir Kulic received a Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Texas – Austin (2009). He teaches Architectural History and Design at FAU in the School of Architecture. He has published articles on architecture in Socialist Yugoslavia, as well as in materials on contemporary architectural criticism. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Modernism In-Between: The Mediatory Architectures of Socialist Yugoslavia, with Wolfgang Thaler and Maroje Mrduljaš. He is the winner of the 2009 Bruno Zevi Award for Critical/Historical Essay in Architecture.