Topic: case study

Essay Brief

Begin by surveying the texts we read in the seminars (both Miniblock Two and Three) and those available under ‘further reading' on Weblearn and choose one or two you find particularly interesting. Examine what the central topic or idea of these texts was. Is it the idea that architecture can somehow embody memory? Does it suggest that the human body is represented in buildings? Does it describe how the city and its buildings can present a reading of a culture? Re-read these texts.

Choose one of these texts as a starting point. The task for this essay is to evaluate and interpret one of the seminar readings and the argument it makes.

Your essay will expand, analyse, define, re-interpret, re-apply, present in a new light the ideas in this text with the help of other seminar readings, and new texts you add through independent research, and by presenting examples that help you illustrate your analysis.

To do this, you need an open mind and a notebook, and some time in the city and the library.

You will find that by reading books, making notes of interesting ideas and references, looking in footnotes and going from one text to the next, new ideas and insights simply materialise. You will start to make connections, and write them down. This is the beginning of all writing.

The rest is persistence and structuring your time. Writing is a skill; it wants to be practiced.

Remember what I said about this being an ‘essay'. You don't need to come up with a grand scheme. It is enough to explore one of the ideas represented in the lecture and seminar readings in more detail, and to make a connection between them and examples of buildings or other texts of your choice. This is essentially what you will be doing. Begin with one of the readings, and widen your understanding of the argument it presents by adding examples of your own and other texts you discovered during your research.

The following may serve as examples:

‘Aldo Rossi's idea of the monument' ‘Michelangelo and mannerism' ‘Words, buildings, memories' ‘Bollnow's concept of space'
‘Tafuri's rewriting of the Renaissance' ‘Gordon Matta Clarke: Intersection' ‘Baroque: poetry in space?'
‘The myth of the Gothic architect'

...etc., in which you may argue that

• the city is not ‘legible'
• desctruction is the equivalent of forgetting in architecture
• like Baroque music, Baroque poetry and architecture don't co-incide
• the Renaissance wasn't the ‘golden age' of architecture it is believed to be...

Rules

There are some basic rules you should observe. Once you have chosen a general topic from the lecture and seminar material, you need to do the following:

1. Re-read the text and other, related texts, and pay particular attention to the sources and concepts it refers to. Have a look at some of these in the library.

2. Use the LondonMet library catalogue to help you find more essays and materials about your topic. This may include books you can borrow, or essays and articles you can find by accessing the library's online resources. Many interesting architectural periodicals can be searched through the library, and you can easily access many relevant articles like this. Find, and include in your essay, at least two other sources and readings not present in the seminar bibliography to help with your argument. You will need to learn how to find new, relevant material to read with the help of library catalogues and keywords, as well as learning the skill of following references in footnotes.

3. Include in your essay, as an example, at least one building or place in the city of London, or an object in a collection (a painting, artefact etc.) - similar to the miniature-essays you have written.

4. Include at least one example (a building/ideas/object) from each miniblock lecture series.

5. Use the Internet as a resource to find sources and texts, but do not quote from the Internet (quoting from an essay accessible through library services of course is a representation of a real article, in an actual periodical; but don't quote from online information pages, guides and articles: find the sources they use and quote from them).

6. Explore and describe these texts and their ideas, and your examples, by juxtaposing and analysing them, with a view to exploring your main topic (architecture as language; power and architecture etc.)

7. Structure this analysis in the form of chapters. Add a brief introduction, and conclusion.

Summary:

Write an essay on a topic of your choice, starting with one of the seminar readings in this miniblock which you investigate in more detail. You will need to undertake independent research to find new, relevant texts and examples to help you do this.

Your essay should have an introduction, middle part (argument), and conclusion. Re-read and follow the CSS Handbook. Your essay should be 2,000 to 2,500 words long.

No# of Pages: 8 pages (2,000 words)

Subject Area: Architecture

No# of Sources Required: 15

Attachment:- Articles.rar