Graduate Curriculum & Courses

This lecture/discussion course examines the research, documentation, and analysis of historic structures through the lens of the National Register of Historic Places nomination process.The course will explore the various research methods and resources currently available and commonly used by historic preservation professionals, and students will have the opportunity to visit several Chicago research repositories to conduct research first-hand. Students will learn a common standard for written architectural descriptions, as well as criteria for evaluating historic significance. The course will also explore several essential aspects of the National Register process, including the development of historic contexts and evaluation of historic integrity. Readings will include: ?Your House Has a History,? published by the Department of Planning and Development, City of Chicago; National Register Bulletin 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria; National Register Bulletin 16A: How to Complete the National Register Registration Form; as well as a wide variety of National Register Nominations and Chicago Landmark Designation Reports. Students will develop research, analytic, and writing skills that are fundamental to historic preservation work through the completion of a National Register nomination for an assigned historic building, as well as through several small research and writing assignments. Several guest lectures given throughout the semester will provide students with insight into how research and architectural writing is used in various professional contexts, and students will present their National Register nominations at the end of the semester to a panel of historic preservation professionals.

This course investigates the materials and techniques used in North American building construction. The history and development of materials, their physical properties, and characteristics are studied. Building construction methods are explored including adobe, wood, stone, brick, concrete, and steel construction. Research papers and oral presentations are required. Lecture and field trips.

This class will focus on the general thought processes, cultural contexts, and historical gaffs that lead to both the grassroot efforts and professionalization of Historic Preservation in the United States. Changes within the preservation movement have always been driven by the cultural ethics of the time, so we will increasingly discuss and grapple with current issues that have asked our field to stretch in scope and adapt to the rapidly changing social, economic, and environmental landscapes. This class surveys ideas and approaches to historic preservation from multiple perspectives. We will cover a range of book excerpts, videos, newspaper articles, and other media to show the breadth of the field from both a theoretical and action-oriented perspective. Most of the required reading and viewing will be in pdf and video format and either uploaded to Canvas or linked to the syllabus. By the end of this course, students will be able to articulate precedents in preservation approaches, describe how preservation practices have changed over time and why, weigh and demonstrate a variety of approaches to contentious or culturally-sensitive preservation challenges, demonstrate a self-critical approach, and articulate an ethical position as part of a coherent preservation narrative. Discussion will be key to this process, and a final project may consist of the creation of a zine that highlights a lesser- or un-known narrative about a place.

The documentation of historic cultural resources is critical to the field of historic preservation. By immersion, students will learn photographic, measuring and drawing methods and subsequently develop a deep understanding of the pattern language of architectural drawing. Collections management and inventory will also be addressed. During the course, we will reference the Historic American Buildings Survey collection at the United States Library of Congress. All relevant standards and guidelines issued by the National Park Service will be referenced, as well as previous projects from the HABS collection. By measuring and drawing extant historic objects and structures to exacting standards, students will become familiar with historic construction techniques, building materials and design principles. Students will develop skills and provide final drawings and notes which will be included in the HABS collection.

This lecture/discussion course examines practical and philosophical issues in planning for preservation and the methods for implementation. Among the topics included are preservation surveys and ordinances, zoning and building codes, historical district and landmark designation, design review, preservation agencies (local, state, and national) and their roles, preservation economics and incentives, public relations, and interpretation. Lecture with field trips.

�Cultural Landscapes� brings students together in an interdisciplinary studio to explore approaches to heritage, site research and environmental remediation through the lens of prophetic mapping. The class will offer both group and individual project development opportunities. The initial phase of work will involve off campus, observational site located studio work - drawing, writing, audio visual recording, material collections and making. The landscapes in the Chicago bio-region will be studied both as layered historical documents and as an inter-connected matrix of living entities, paying close attention to the presence of natural and imposed life sustaining systems. In particular work will focus on the role that water has played, historically and up to the present time in the region. Contemporary discourses about landscape management, ownership, land use, geo-politics and cultural conditions will be explored, considering precedents in the recent past alongside the material heritage of settlement and colonization for their continued significance in the present. A close reading of the landscape of the Chicago region both as a complex of physical places, and as an historically constructed conceptual matrix will also include working with historical maps of the region in local archives. Our initial access to this work will involve acknowledging indigenous precedents and seeking permission, approaching the observation of current conditions as part of a duty of care. Historical approaches to mapping and navigation will be explored also through the first-hand written accounts of journeys, and in colonizer, settlement and resettlement narratives. The class will focus on decentered and decolonized approaches to storytelling, ecological conservation, heritage preservation and civic engagement. This class is open to students from across the school and is designed to offer an interdisciplinary working studio opportunity. Research will emanate from a previously developed resource, a wiki list of �Great Lakes Waterkeepers� and be carried forward through a Decentered Autonomous Organizational approach initiated by Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio in the previous academic year. Readings will examine explorations and concepts of space, place and social interaction fostered through grassroots approaches of ecology and naturalism in the writings of Robin Wall Kimerer, Michael Twitty, Aldo Leopold, and May Theilgaard Watts, and others. Research sources will also include explorations of cultural landscapes by Carl Sauer, William Cronon, and Arijit Sen, landscape historiographies and concepts of deep time are included in readings including, John McPhee�s Basin and Range, Laurent Olivier�s The Dark Abyss of Time, James Lovelock�s The Ages of Gaia, David Lowenthal�s The Past is a Foreign Country, and Obi Kaufmann�s California Field Atlas.

In this seminar/lecture/lab course, students learn the fundamentals of building conservation and repair techniques. Basic microscopy practices are taught through historic finishes analysis. Means of chemical and physical testing of historic building materials, cleaning methods and agents, protection, water repellents and consolidation, patching and repair, use and abuse of adhesives, etc. are discussed. Student presentations, guest lectures, laboratory work and field trips.

A continuation of Thesis I, this seminar covers the final writing, editing, printing, and oral presentation of the master's thesis. Open only to students in their final semester.