This is an archive. See the current website at www.summer.harvard.edu.
This page contains content from the Summer School 2009. For current information, visit the Harvard Summer School website at www.summer.harvard.edu.
HARC S-34g
Summer Seminar—Rome and Saint Peter's (31843)
(Syllabus) (Printable version)
Christine Smith
(4 credits: UN) Mondays, Wednesdays, 8:30-11:30 am. Tuition $2,475. Limited enrollment.
Summer Seminars are open only to Secondary School Program juniors and seniors, and to college undergraduates.
This is a seminar about art, architecture, and urbanism in Rome from antiquity through the baroque era. Special attention is given to the Vatican where the layering of material artifacts from successive historical periods provides an uninterrupted record of more than 2,000 years. By providing a continuous testimony of built work, the Vatican establishes a narrative of continuity against which building elsewhere in Rome can be viewed. For each historical stage students identify changes at the Vatican and take an imaginary walk through Rome, tracking the city's changing cultural and architectural character. This dual focus—on the continuous development of a single site and on the evolving reality of the city as a whole—illuminates broader cultural, artistic, and political aspirations and values of the ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods. The course is divided into two parts: the first concerns developments through the Middle Ages (from about 30 BC to 1500 AD); the second looks in greater detail at specific projects from the Renaissance and the baroque period (1500 to about 1700 AD). Topics in the first part focus on the transformation of the ancient Roman city, the creation of new architectural forms and urban meanings in response to the Christianization of empire, and the practice of pilgrimage as urban experience. The second part focuses more closely on the style and meaning of those works of art, architecture, and urbanism that distinguish Rome and the Vatican today: Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, Bramante's design for the new St. Peter's, Bernini's sculpture for the rebuilt basilica, and the urban renewal of the city as a whole in the baroque era.
HARC S-122
Study Abroad in Istanbul, Turkey: Major Works of Ottoman Culture (32433)
(Printable version)
Tulay Artan
Limited enrollment.
Study abroad programs are restricted to students 18 years of age or older.
See Study Abroad for more information.
HARC S-128
Monuments and Cities of the Islamic World: An Introduction (32362)
(Website) (Printable version)
David J. Roxburgh
(4 credits: UN, GR, NC) Tuesdays, Thursdays, noon-3 pm. Tuition $2,475.
This course introduces students to key monuments and cities from the historical Islamic lands, circa 650-1650, from Spain to India. Various building types are treated—e.g., mosques, palaces, schools, tombs, and shrines—as well as the factors that shaped and motivated them, whether artistic, cultural, social, political, or economic.
HARC S-152v
Study Abroad in Venice: Topics in Italian Renaissance Art (32139)
(Website) (Printable version)
Frank Fehrenbach
Limited enrollment.
Study abroad programs are restricted to students 18 years of age or older.
See Study Abroad for more information.
HARC S-183
The Architecture of Boston (31320)
(Syllabus) (Printable version)
Alexander von Hoffman
(4 credits: UN, GR, NC) Tuesdays, Thursdays, 3:15-6:15 pm. Tuition $2,475.
This course examines Boston's architecture and urban design from the city's founding to the present. Through lectures, readings, and walking tours, it explores the works of major designers such as Charles Bulfinch, H. H. Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Walter Gropius, I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, and Machado-Silvetti. Together we investigate the development of Boston's urban landscape, its architecture, and neighborhoods: from an archipelago of early American settlement to a major urban node within the contemporary eastern seaboard's megalopolis. The course focuses on the social and economic context of Boston's architecture and urban design, and the city's contributions to American architecture.