HST-296 Building Urban America: City Design and Architecture From 1700-1880
From the ancient cliff dwellings of the Pueblo people to the iconic nineteenth-century street grid of Manhattan, Americans throughout history have built cities distinguished by architectural creativity. This course explores the design history of the buildings and landscapes of America's early cities, from the pre-contact period through the 1850s. Each week students will study a different early-American city to learn about the environmental, architectural, social, and political forces that shaped these places. They will also practice the techniques used by historians, preservationists, and urban planners to examine the built environment and to find traces of this history in today's cities.