For Monday, September 24

Read, in Girouard,
Chapter 10, "A New Scale," pp. 211 - 232

Every time I've taught a course on Colonial America, I've had to caution students to "think small". Our impression of what a city is is so colored by the 20^th century Metropolis that it is practically inconceivable to imagine the modest size of colonial cities like Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. Prior to the late 17^th century, European cities were fairly modest places, too. London had a population of around 500,000 at the time of the American Revolution. Today, a city that size would not be considered more than modest. Yet medieval cities and even cities in the early years of "The City Triumphant" were much smaller affairs. This chapter marks the expansion of small places into something closer to our previous conceptions.

There are three things I would like to have you keep in mind as you read this chapter. First, I would like to have you think logistically. What kinds of problems have to be met and conquered before cities can expand in scale. Second, think about the relationship of the grid to urban expansion. Why does the grid really come into its own during this period and after? Third, think organizationally. How does the city respond to this new scale by inventing new forms of organization, and while you're thinking that way, think also about how residents relate to the fabric of this new "monumental" city. (Hint: look carefully at figure 191.)

I mentioned before that there would be some films included in the agenda for this course. The trauma of the past weeks caused me to let this slip below my awareness horizon and I apologize for bringing it to your attention so late.

Fritz Lang's 1927 silent feature film Metropolis is a landmark in the history of the development of cinema as an art form. Monumental in both scale of production and the themes it addressed, the film is widely regarded as the pinnacle of German Expressionist film making during the 1920s. http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/Metroa.html

For Wednesday, September 26

Read, in Girouard,
Chapter 11: The City as Export, pp. 233-254

in, Lopate, ed., Writing New York, a Literary Anthology,
From a History of New York (Washington Irving), pp. 1-7
"The Stranger at Home, or, A Tour in Broadway" (James Kirk Paulding) pp. 8 - 15

At last, America looms over the horizon. Chapter eleven will reinforce my rationale for including this book on your reading list. What I hope you will be able to do henceforth is to see how American Urbanism compares with urbanism in other places.

The two short pieces which I've assigned from Lopate give us a chance for our first vicarious experiences... living with our authors American Urban life. This is the first work we've had which is not supported by visual materials. You'll have to supply some of your own. I hope to add some others to the website as time allows. Paulding especially gives us a chance to exercise our imaginations because of the impressionistic, sketchy style in which it is written.

No new readings. We'll watch a video this period from the series "America by Design," narrated and devised by the architectural historian Spiro Kostof. There are 5 videos in this series, all of them worth looking at because they attempt to distinguish between American expressions of culture on the landscape and those of other cultures. (Girouard shows us how we fit into western ideas, Kostof shows us how we're different in certain subtle ways).

We won't be seeing all of these though they're worth looking at. I want to look at the third in the series, "The Street" this period, which "Traces the history of American transportation systems from rivers to railways and from simple roads to high-speed interstate highways. Architecture historian Spiro Kostof looks at such thoroughly American institutions as Main Street, Millionaire's Row, and Elm Street and shows how they reflect a city's character. Examines the effects of new technologies on land use and population growth and visits the creations of city planners".