GRADUATE THEORY COURSE

(summer semester, 3crds)

Technology as a pivotal and decisive parameter  of architectural creation is looked and debated upon as well as appreciated and taught as part of architectural practice but not as part of architectural thinking and contemplation.

The module will attempt to approach technology as an inseparable part of architectural attestations and theories and to associate the manipulations of the architect during the creative act with technological advances as these have been formulated in the history of architecture. More specifically, the module focuses on the relationship between architecture and technology as this appears in contemporary information society, the society of networks after the 1980s.

The educational content constitutes a critical analysis of architectural creation as a mediator and an agent of the representation in space  of the continuously transforming relationship between culture and technology. The module aims at transcending the fragmented consideration of the histories and theories of architecture and the history of technology. It will focus on the dynamic nature of architecture which is dictated by the dynamic nature of technology as a refection of the political, economical and social context in which architecture develops and emerges.

Moreover, the module will follow the ways in which architectural contemplation and practice are influenced by technological advancements. The dual and equivocal distinction between the means and the end, the reason and the result, the idea and the materiality, the representation and the genesis, the  natural and the artificial, nature and the artifact will constitute, through this perspective, the subject of debate in the course of the module.

The module will include lectures by the module leader inasmuch as by invited speakers related to the module scope. Students have to attend systematically in order to draw for themselves an overall picture and appreciation in order to elaborate the final essay which will be the way for them to be assessed on the module.

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