Beyond the Survey 

The workshop examined the architectural history survey course as a typically chronological setup spread over two semesters, often burdened by notions of historical progression and essentializing categories of style, period, and nation. Over a week, six architectural historians asked: if this rigid two-semester space had to be reimagined, what can it become? While architectural history survey courses have pedagogical value as introductory platforms for students, the workshop argued for new conceptual and pedagogical frameworks that engage with the histories of race, class, gender, labor, and capital in a more dynamic fashion. The survey does more than offer a generalized chronological gaze over the field when architectural and urban histories get embedded within ecological, political, social, material, and cultural histories. While we have more access to content than before—thanks to sources such as GAHTC—there are still questions of format, form, and structure that need to be scrutinized and analyzed. What kinds of changes can kindle cultural and historical literacy, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary research methods among students?