Course Number: ARC 471g/571g Year: Elec Credit Hours: 3 Semester(s): Fall Spring Prerequisites: ARC 231 and 232 or permission of the instructor
Instructor(s):
Course Description:
This course investigates the architecture of museums and the installation of exhibitions, past and present, as manifestations of contemporary understanding of the construction and content of knowledge, the public mission of cultural and scientific institutions, and the framing of visitors' experience.
Objectives 1. To provide an introduction to current scholarly and critical discourse on visual and material culture. 2. To equip students to analyze the role of architecture in the impact of large public institutions in the cultural sphere. 3. To expose students to the variety of collections and exhibitions which museums house and to the diversity of museum visitor needs and expectations. 4. To establish effective research skills through exposure to a variety of research resources and methodologies. 5. To foster effective written and verbal communication through exercises in critical reading, framing a topic for research, and constructing a persuasive argument.
Course Structure & Topics Over the course of the semester, the class will seek to develop its own rigorous definition of the museum as a critical gateway to knowledge, coming to grips with the role the architect has played and can play in enhancing the museum as 1) housing and publicity for artifacts, 2) engine for public education, 3) barometer of scientific progress and cultural change, and 4) urban/civic generator. Specific weeks will focus on the following topics: Museum Functions: What Is a Museum? What Does It Do? The History of Collecting and the Origins of Museums Museum Development in the Nineteenth Century Patterns of Visitor Behavior: Accommodating Differences in Education, Experience, and Engagement "Scopic Regimes" or "The Exhibitionary Complex" Strategies of Display The Museum and New Media The Museum in the City Ideologies of the Art Museum The Architecture of Science The Spectacle of Ethnography and Revisionism in the Anthropological Museum
Course Requirements In addition to mandatory attendance in the seminar and regular participation in discussion, the student is expected to complete all assigned readings, weekly reading response essays, and a research paper or project.
