Program Overview

Program Overview

The Architectural Imagination is a course offered by Harvard University, featuring faculty from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This 10-week course requires 3-5 hours of study per week and is available for enrollment as an individual.

Course Details

• Course Length: 10 weeks
• Study Time: 3-5 hours per week
• Enrollment: Available for individual enrollment
• Certificate Price: $249
• Class Duration: December 11, 2024 - December 10, 2025

Course Description

This course teaches the fundamental principles of architecture by studying some of history's most important buildings. Architecture engages a culture's deepest social values and expresses them in material, aesthetic form. The course will cover how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement. Through vivid analyses of exemplary buildings and hands-on exercises in drawing and modeling, students will gain a deeper understanding of the work of architects and historians.

Course Structure

The course is divided into parts:

1. Introduction to the architectural imagination, including perspective drawing and architectural typology.
2. Exploration of technology as a component of architecture, including how innovative technology can enable and promote new aesthetic experiences or disrupt age-old traditions.
3. Examination of architecture's complex relationship to its social and historical contexts and its audiences, achievements, and aspirations.

Learning Outcomes

• How to read, analyze, and understand different forms of architectural representation
• Social and historical contexts behind major works of architecture
• Basic principles to produce your own architectural drawings and models

Faculty

The course is taught by Harvard faculty, including:

• Antoine Picon, G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology
• Erika Naginski, Professor of Architectural History
• K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory
• Lisa Haber-Thomson, Instructor in Architecture

Enrollment Options

• Audit the course for free with access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums.
• Pursue a Verified Certificate for $249, which provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums, and the opportunity to earn a certificate upon completing the course with a passing grade.