Urban Histories

Master 2020/2021

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Elective course (Prototyping Future Cities)

Area of studies: Urban Planning

Delivered by: Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism

Where: Faculty of Urban and Regional Development

When: 1 year, 2 semester

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Maria Chichagova, Ekaterina Zarudnaya

Master’s programme: Prototyping Future Cities

Language: English

ECTS credits: 4

Contact hours: 48

Full Syllabus

Abstract

Through comprehensive exploration of the most ambitious urban visioning coming from various epochs students learn to gather and analyse information and knowledge related to both urban development theories and urban realities. Students are encouraged to read texts and use audiovisual material to develop their understanding of the cases, and represent it to the group in ways that evoke discussions and lead to the understanding of the urbanism as creative and critical practices. By carrying out such analysis students will be able to produce their own critical texts on the urban future by the end of the course. Block 1 will guide students through the history of urban and regional planning, explaining how—in various moments across history—ambitions to improve the living environment and solve the most acute social and economic problems helped to formulate effective socio-spatial concepts for the city. Block 2 is an advanced seminar in history and theory of urban design and urban planning in Russia within the larger context of Russian culture and politics. The goal of the course is to highlight key ideas and attitudes that shaped the design of Russian cities; understand their relationship to the global theory and practice of urbanism; examine their origin and nature, and their relationship with the built projects.

Learning Objectives

to frame the city form within a historical perspective; to present the key socio-spatial concepts for the cities and explain their origins; to critically assess urban and regional planning policies
to familiarize students with the history of Russian and Soviet City Planning within the larger cultural and political context of the country

Expected Learning Outcomes

to understand key socio-spatial concepts and a basic repertory of urban and regional development in Global North
to recognize the relationship between urbanism, politics, urban governance, economy, and other associated fields
to understand key policies and debates that affected the shape of European and American cities
to have an informed opinion about Soviet urban history, and be able to identify different periods and key ideas
to understand the context, forces and ideas that shaped Russian cities
to make an intellectual connection between global and Russian history of urbanism
to acquire familiarity with the form and history of Russian cities and their unique features

Course Contents

Planning genealogies and visionary ideas of urban development
Planning after WWII: regional and urban planning policies and the new social movement
Planning in the age of agglomeration economies and global warming
The city-forming function of the World Expo
The Byzantine Roots of Russian Culture
Russian Christian Tradition. Early towns and the Theory of City Form.
Affinities with the West, Love of the East
The Silk Route. The Hanseatic League. The Story of St.Petersburg. Regulating Russian Cities before 1917.
Town and Revolution. The Russian Avant Garde
European Architects in the USSR
European Planning Concept and the USSR
The Socialist City
The New Economic Policy. Cooperatives and other forms of communal living.
The Cold War
Americanizm in the USSR. Cultural Diplomacy: On Two Sides of the Iron Curtain.
The Khrushev Era
Art and Architecture of Advanced Socialism. Architectures of the Socialist Countries.
The end of Central Planning and the Architecture without Ideology?

Assessment Elements

Attendance
Seminar participation - Block 1
Presentation - Block 1
Seminar participation - Block 2
Individual visual research work

Interim Assessment

Interim assessment (2 semester)
0.15 * Attendance + 0.25 * Individual visual research work + 0.15 * Presentation - Block 1 + 0.2 * Seminar participation - Block 1 + 0.25 * Seminar participation - Block 2

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Emily Talen. (1999). Sense of Community and Neighbourhood Form: An Assessment of the Social Doctrine of New Urbanism. Urban Studies, 8, 1361.
Hall, P. (2014). Cities of Tomorrow : An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880 (Vol. Fourth edition). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=761791
Hall, P. G. (2002). Urban and Regional Planning: Vol. 4th ed. Routledge.
Harvey, D. (2014). Rebel Cities : From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (Vol. Unabridged). [S.l.]: Verso. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=729943
Jacobs, J. (1992). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1280725
John Friedmann. (1986). The World City Hypothesis. Development and Change, 1, 69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1986.tb00231.x
Sassen, S. (2004). The Global City: Introducing a Concept. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 11(2), 27–43.
Seghezzo, L. (2009). The five dimensions of sustainability. Environmental Politics ; Volume 18, Issue 4, Page 539-556 ; ISSN 0964-4016 1743-8934. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644010903063669
Zachmann, K., & Oldenziel, R. (2009). Cold War Kitchen : Americanization, Technology, and European Users. MIT Press.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

David Harvey. (1970). Social Processes And Spatial Form: An Analysis Of The Conceptual Problems Of Urban Planning. Papers in Regional Science, 1, 47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1435-5597.1970.tb01477.x
Le Corbusier. (2013). Towards a New Architecture. Dover Publications.

Course Syllabus