The integration of sustainability into architectural education has generated the next challenge to architectural and urban history courses. Schools now experience pressures to make architectural and urban history courses 'green.' This project looks at how sustainability can be incorporated into teaching architectural history classes.
The integration of sustainability into architectural education has generated the next challenge to architectural and urban history courses. Schools now experience pressures to make architectural and urban history courses “Green.”
How is the body of discourse that lies at the intersection of architectural and environmental histories defined?
I begin with defining environmental histories as histories of human interaction with nature, which means how humans have responded to the physical environment and the impact of human intervention on environment. Most architectural and urban history classes underscore how humans have responded to the physical environment through architecture and urbanism as interventions to protect humans from the natural environment. The architectural histories are silent on the impact of architecture and urbanism on the natural environment. This body of knowledge that deals with the impact of human interventions on nature has traditionally been the territory of environmental historians. With the Greening of the history courses, these disciplinary boundaries will have to be fluid and the Green surveys will have to weigh in on the impact of architecture and urbanism on the environment.
Architectural and urban histories frame architecture and cities as cultural artifacts. Architectural and urban histories are primarily concerned with the visual, formal, and cultural aspects of architecture and cities and do not look at built environment and the cities as sites of resource consumption. Future green history classes will have to address architecture and cities, not just as cultural and visual objects, but also as ecosystems. Green architectural histories will have to discuss the environmental cost of architectural and urban achievements in history.
A plan to produce a history of architecture and urbanism that will integrate visual and cultural studies with environmental sciences on a global scale without diluting the contents.
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