HIS-30140 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2020/21

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2020/21

Cities have captured the human imagination since ancient times. While, however, in the past they tended to grow organically and at a slower pace, since the late nineteenth century cities have become far more important icons of modernity itself. Enter Metropolis, the city of the twentieth century, dwarfing its predecessors in size, height, ambition, and power. Starting with Chicago and New York at the turn of the century, one of the defining characteristics of the modern metropolis was its embrace of higher buildings and higher density. The `race to the sky¿ gradually moved from a competition for the single highest building that appeared to defy gravity to plans for incongruous `flying cities¿, blueprints for quixotic ¿streets in the sky¿, masterplans for solving once and for all a wide range of social problems such as poverty or lack of affordable housing. This ambition to turn the modern city into the ultimate template for saving all of humanity¿s problems invited more and more ambitious ideas but also inspired anxiety, fear or even outright hostility.
This module will explore the history of the rise and rise of the modern metropolis, exploring a range of visions, ideas, and projects that shaped cities across the world since the 1880s. We will embark on a global journey over space and time that will take us from the 1889 Paris world fair that saw the construction of the Eiffel Tower and the first steel-frame high-rise buildings in the USA to the exploration of a wide range of ideas for a fully-planned modern `functional¿ metropolis mid-century, to the rise of the brutalist city post-1945 and the demise of the modernist city post-1970, and finally to the rise of the hyper-modern metropolis of the late-twentieth century. This journey will take us from Chicago and New York to London, Moscow, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Brasilia, Shanghai, and Dubai.

This module aims to acquaint students with the role of modern urban planning and architecture in envisioning and building the twentieth-century metropolis, through a variety of case studies from across the world and drawing on approaches that highlight the role of power, ideology, economics, and class.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1,2
evaluate and critically assess a range of primary sources and use them appropriately in the development of historical analysis: 2
engage with ideas and concepts in a comparative and very often trans-national context of analysis: 1,2
gain a deep understanding of historical and contemporary debates on the role of architecture in the political, social, economic, and cultural domains:

Study hours

20 hrs seminars or equivalent contact time
60 hrs seminar preparation
50 hrs researching and writing essay
20 hrs researching and completing weekly portfolio tasks

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment