Essay Briefing

For next week, please prepare the following:

1. chose a topic - can be anything that relates to lectures/readings as long as it has a link to architecture.

Chose a very specific topic. A particular work or architect., a particulararchitectural method or design principle.

2. write a thesis paragraph - “In the following essay I will demonstrate that...”

3. chose 5 images that illustrate your thesis

4. write captions for your images that state how they illustrate your thesis

Please turn paragraph statement with images in on Friday, 18 November

Friday 16th December - Essay Tutorials with me and Allan Atlee

Monday 9th January - Essay Submission

2500 word image-text document developed around a topic of your choosing, developed in consultation with me.

The document will consist of three sections.

1. brief 500 word introduction to the annotated image section 2.

2. includes 10-15 images that illustrate your topic. Each image must be annotated with commentary that explains how it

A. historically, and B. theoretically supports your thesis.

3. a fully considered, 2000 word essay about your topic.

The paper should draw upon the lectures, set readings, bibliographies and your own experiences of the course. It should be fully referenced using the Harvard System. You should ensure that you have attended a Library Induction and that you are familiar with the Harvard System of referencing and the Universities Policies on Academic Misconduct, in particular in relation to Plagiarism. (see Student Regulations Handbook 200910)

Only on condition of a radial widening of definition will it bepossible for art and activities related to art to provide evidence thatart is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art iscapable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile socialsystem that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle inorder to build a SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART.

Joseph Beuys, 1973

Joseph Beuys, Save the Woods, 1972, offset lithograph on paper

Essay figure guidelines:

Figure identification information

Text information of citation is helpful

While Henri Lefebvre’s work on urbanism has to a degree been superseded by that of Manuel Castells, David Harvey, and Edward Soja, among many others, I return to his work to make some preliminary observations about how urbanism, as a theoretical category, might be linked to Lefebvre’s other axial theoretical concept, that of everyday life. And in turn, I will link these two terms to a specific rendering of informality. [Figure 2] Urbanism refers not only to the physical characteristics of cities, [Figure 3] or to the various processes of urban planning, but in Lefebvre’s use it refers even more to a form of human consciousness. The city, in his theoretical hands, [Figure 4] is itself a means of production largely commanded by global capitalism. In other words, urbanism has a theoretical status equivalent to industrialism, as Lefebvre explicitly argues; Figure 5] the city itself must be considered as a productive apparatus and force that produces life. Urban consciousness, therefore, is characterized by an everydayness that must be distinguished from non-urban life, [Figure 6] from rural everyday life for example, though they often mix. [Figure 7] Everydayness therefore is not monolithic and may be found in many modes. Figure 8] I’m interested here in everyday life as characterized by urban adaptive economic strategies that occur outside, but also alongside, the sanctioned labor divisions of capitalism. My aim is very simple: I only wish to establish the cultural and human value of modes of urban living that I’m sure we have all encountered. But I’m not sure that we have understood properly their complexities. I think they can too easily be seen merely as necessities imposed by the exigencies of poverty. And that is no doubt often the case. But in some instances, perhaps in every instance, they are much more than that. [Figure 9] In some cases, what appears to be poverty, is actually not simply a choice, but is a political choice, often a willful act of political resistance.

Essay Figure guidelines:

use of images in your essay: