Beyond Antiquity: Architecture

ECTS: 5

The course will offer an overview of a thousand years of architecture from the early-Christian period and the Middle Ages, inclusive of the Byzantine era. The focus will be mainly on sacred architecture, but attention will also be paid to the development of a distinct secular architecture in the later Middle Ages as the formative years of the modern era. The tutorials will discuss aspects such as liturgical function, symbolic meanings, building techniques as well as the formation of cities, hotspots of a new urbane culture since its decline in late Antiquity. Students are required to prepare themselves by reading a selection of texts, both source material in translation and secondary literature.