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.

Writing Assignment and Grading Breakdown

This course includes both individual and group writing components. Evaluation will follow a detailed rubric, which is available in the Quarter Guide or on the course-specific Brightspace page.

Assessment Components:

Individual Essay – 80% of final grade: Each student is required to submit an individual essay addressing one of the themes and subjects of the course. Group Work – 20% of final grade: Groups will prepare written position statements during class, taking a stance on the central themes of the course. 

Students should achieve a minimum grade of 6.0 to pass this course.

The assignment is awarded a grade that is a whole or half number between 1.0 and 10.0. Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a grade below 6.0: students who handed in assessable work during the course can choose to hand in an improved assignment (repair, on the condition that an initial assignment was handed in during the course) to change the grade into a ‘pass’. An assignment can be repaired only once. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again.

The repair is unsupervised and must be handed in by the end of Friday in the white week between Q2 and Q3, thus in the week between academic weeks 2.10 and 3.1.