ARTH 63.75 Fieldwork in the Built Environment
Fieldwork has been instrumental to how architectural history, and other disciplines produce knowledge about the built environment. But its methods and history remain curiously understudied, even as historians, architects, anthropologists, photographers, and others turn to fieldwork to raise questions about histories of the built environment that are either unthinkable or impermissible within their respective fields of knowledge. Where and how does fieldwork in the built environment happen, and how is it different from other forms of knowledge and cultural production? In what ways do fieldwork practitioners engage with the political and ethical implications of their work? By bringing examples of fieldwork in architectural history into conversation with research in anthropology, geography, and other field-based practices, the seminar will introduce students to histories and methods of reckoning with the past and making sense of ongoing processes in the built environment through firsthand observation. Students will learn about fieldwork by doing it: each week, students will conduct fieldwork in response to prompts given by the instructor that relate their observations to examples of fieldwork discussed in class. The final assignment for the quarter will be a “field report” that contextualizes and reflects on the student’s fieldwork over the duration of the quarter.
Instructor
Gambetta