Architecture Beyond the Visual

Architecture has been conceptualized to a large extent in visual terms. Due to its long alliance with art history and visual mediums, architectural history has contributed to the persistence of the notion of architecture as the domain of sight, and its own proclivity for centering on the visual has made it emit a whole range of other realms in which buildings partake. This ocular-centrism has had a profound impact on notions of the subject/ user both architecture and architectural history have crafted.
Combining readings in architectural history and critique with analyses of design, this seminar will parse how the visual emphasis has been articulated in architectural discourse and practice, and examine attempts to overcome it by centering on other sensory modalities in architectural experience in the context of materiality, technology, and culture. The course will also address the spatial experience of the disabled, whose understanding requires parting with the primarily visual mode of conceptualizing architecture.