ARTH 3855 - [The House and the World: Architecture of Asia]

(crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 3394, VISST 3655)(GHB) (HA-AS)

4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015.

K. McGowan.

In many Asian societies, houses are regarded as having a vitality of their own. This course will examine the role of the house as a living organism in Asia. Houses also function as storehouses for material and immaterial wealth; artifacts such as textiles, jewelry, sculptures, and masks function within the house as ancestral heirlooms, conveying their own currents of life force, the power from which serving to blend with the vitality of the house. The indigenous architectural traditions of India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines will be examined. By studying the inhabited spaces of others, divining their technologies of construction and their applied symbologies, students will be provided with powerful tools for examining the visual skills and sensibilities of other cultures.