Students should identify and read at least two articles or book chapters about one architectural venue that they will visit during the program. As a general rule of thumb this should be a site in one of the cities on the group itinerary, but it could also be a site visited independently during midterm break (if plans are firmly in place to travel there). The building could be just one part of a large site (such as Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey) or a group of associated structures (such as Gaudi’s townhouses in Barcelona).
Students who plan to get course credit towards a major or minor in either a language or an area study should select pertinent topics. For example, for Medieval and Renaissance Studies credit, please select a building from this time period. Or, for French and Francophone Studies credit, please select a French structure (or one that has a direct connection to French cultural studies). For credits in language departments (such as Classics, French and Spanish), the articles may certainly still be in English.
A summary of the chosen articles should be posted on the student journal page. A simple list with bullet points is fine. For sites the group will visit, these summaries should be posted at least one day prior to the visit so that fellow group members have time to consult it as a helpful resource.
A somewhat random list of suggestions, by country, appears below. This is not meant to narrow the possible choices but rather just to show the sort of sources that would be acceptable (scholarly journals, not popular magazines). Students are encouraged to select their venues and their accompanying readings in consultation with the program director.
England
Tower of London:
Roland B. Harris, “Recent research on the White Tower: reconstructing and dating the Norman building,” Castles and the Anglo-Norman World (chapter 12), eds. Davies, Riley, Levesque & Lapiche (Oxbow, 2016), 177-89.
Westminster Abbey:
*Eric Fernie, “Edward the Confessor’s Westminster Abbey” in Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, ed. Richard Mortimer (Boydell Press, 2009), 139–50.
Hampton Court:
Suzannah Lipscomb, “Historical Authenticity and Interpretative Strategy at Hampton Court Palace,” Public Historian 32. 3 (Summer 2010), 98-119.
St. Paul’s Cathedral:
Robert Crayford, “The Setting-Out of St Paul’s Cathedral,” Architectural History 44 (2001), 237-48.
Banqueting House:
Vaughan Hart & Richard Tucker, “‘Immaginacy Set Free’: Aristotelian Ethics and Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House at Whitehall,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics No. 39 (Spring, 2001), 151-167.
Giles Worsley, “Wren, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor, and Archer: The Search for an English Baroque,” Studies in the History of Art 66 (2005), 98-117.
Chiswick House:
Pamela D. Kingsbury, “The Tradition of the Soffitto Veneziano in Lord Burlington’s Suburban Villa at Chiswick,” Architectural History 44 (2001), 145-152.
The Parthenon Marbles:
Vasiliki Kynourgiopoulou, “National Identity Interrupted: The Mutilation of the Parthenon Marbles and the Greek Claim for Repatriation,” Contested Cultural Heritage: Religion, Nationalism, Erasure, and Exclusion in a Global World (chapter 7), ed. Helaine Silverman (Springer, 2011), 155-70.
France
Chartres Cathedral:
Palace of Versailles:
Ste. Chapelle:
*Meredith Cohen, “An Indulgence for the Visitor: The Public at the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 83.4 (Oct. 2008), 840-83.
*Daniel H. Weiss, “Architectural Symbolism and the Decoration of the Ste.-Chapelle,” Art Bulletin 77.2 (Jun. 1995), 308-20.
Villa Savoye:
Kevin D. Murphy, “The Villa Savoye and the Modernist Historic Monument,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61.1 (Mar. 2002), 68-89.
Eiffel Tower:
Frederick Brown, “Eiffel’s Tower ,” New England Review 29.4 (2008), 7-24.
Notre Dame de Paris:
Louvre:
Spain
The Alhambra:
D. Fairchild Ruggles, “Inventing the Alhambra,” Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture (chapter 1), ed. David J. Roxburgh (Brill, 2014), 1-21.
Richard Serrano, “Reading the Alhambra,” Book Title: Visible Writings: Cultures, Forms, Readings (chapter ?), eds. Dalbello & Shaw (Rutgers UP, 2011), 293-303.
The Great Mosque of Cordoba:
Nuha N. N. Khoury, “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century,” Muqarnas 13 (1996), 80-98.
Justin E.A. Kroesen, “From Mosques to Cathedrals: Converting Sacred Space During the Spanish Reconquest,” Mediaevistik 21 (2008), 113-37.
D. Fairchild Ruggles, “La estratigrafía del olvido: la gran mezquita de Córdoba y su legado refutado,” Antipoda 12 (Jan. 2011), 19-37.
La Sagrada Familia:
Royal Chapel:
Italy
Kathleen James-Chakraborty, “Baroque Rome,” chapter in Architecture since 1400 (University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
Ara Pacis:
Maria Josè Strazzulla, “War and Peace: Housing the Ara Pacis in the Eternal City,” American Journal of Archaeology 113.2 Online Museum Review (Apr. 2009).
Arch of Constantine:
Elizabeth Marlowe, “Framing the Sun: The Arch of Constantine and the Roman Cityscape,” Art Bulletin 88.2 (Jun., 2006), 223-242.
Colosseum:
Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, “A Perfect Ruin: Nineteenth-Century Views of the Colosseum,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 2.1 (Winter 1992), 115-42.
Pantheon:
Tod A. Marder & Mark Wilson Jones, eds., “Introduction” in The Pantheon: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge UP, 2015), 1-48.
Church of San Lorenzo:
Matthew A. Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi? A Late Medieval Proportional System in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67.1 (Mar. 2008), 18-57.
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane:
Michael Hill, “Practical and Symbolic Geometry in Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 72.4 (Dec. 2013), 555-83.
Frances Huemer, “Borromini and Michelangelo: Some Preliminary Observations on the Facade of S. Carlino,” Notes in the History of Art 18.4 (Summer 1999), 19-29.