Architecture engages a culture’s deepest social values and expresses them in material, aesthetic form. This course will teach you how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement. Vivid analyses of exemplary buildings, and hands-on exercises in drawing and modeling, will bring you closer to the work of architects and historians.Harvard Professional and Lifelong Learning The first part of the course introduces the idea of the architectural imagination. Perspective drawing and architectural typology are explored and you will be introduced to some of the challenges in writing architectural history.Harvard Professional and Lifelong Learning Then we address technology as a component of architecture. You will discover ways that innovative technology can enable and promote new aesthetic experiences, or disrupt age-old traditions. Technological advances changed what could be built, and even what could even be thought of as architecture.Harvard Professional and Lifelong Learning Finally, we'll confront architecture’s complex relationship to its social and historical contexts and its audiences, achievements, and aspirations. You will learn about architecture’s power of representation and see how it can produce collective meaning and memory.

建筑承载着文化最深层的社会价值，并以物质化、美学化的形式将其表达出来。本课程将带你理解建筑既是文化表达，也是技术成就。通过对经典建筑案例的生动解析，以及制图与建模的实操练习，你将近距离接触建筑师与艺术史家的工作思维与方法。Harvard Professional and Lifelong Learning 课程第一部分引入 “建筑想象力” 的核心概念，探讨透视画法、建筑类型学，并解析建筑史写作的核心挑战；第二部分聚焦技术与建筑的共生关系，探索创新技术如何催生全新美学体验、颠覆传统建造逻辑 —— 技术革新不仅改变了 “能建什么”，更重塑了 “何为建筑” 的定义；最后，深入剖析建筑与社会、历史语境的复杂联结，解读建筑的叙事力量及其承载集体记忆、寄托社会理想的核心价值。