History and Theory of Urbanism

The course provides a lecture series on the theory and history of urban design and urban planning.

The aim of the course is:

• to foster awareness of the disciplines intrinsically historical nature, the evolution of which is motivated by concepts, interpretations, and interactions with social, political, cultural, economic, technological, geographical, and environmental processes.

• to teach students how to assess the historical background of urban plans and designs from different historical periods.

• to enable students to identify and explain the urban as form, structure, function and process, the relation between space, society, landscape, and site, and its composition, elements and material layers.

• to provide students with the ability to evaluate the theoretical concepts underlying urban interventions, the evolution of the discipline in terms of the goals it sets itself and their - alleged - impact.

• to enhance academic writing skills and to enable students to write about their discipline, urban phenomena, design and planning proposals, and theories.