The Birth of Building

As humans, we spend much of our time building — ideas, relationships, communities, machines, and, of course, buildings. Perhaps more than any other activity, building buildings is what has most vividly shaped our culture, our society, our landscape, and our civilization. We have used it to define and express who we are, what we do, what we believe in, and – fundamentally – how we will live our lives. Over the course of three meetings, we will explore the early chapters of this story. These will include how we started building, how our villages became cities, and how – already by nearly two thousand years ago – we had developed a practice, a typology, and a language of architecture upon which (quite literally) we have built our human world.

Any readings or resources will be posted on course website.

William Klingelhofer became interested in building, and especially old buildings, as a teenager growing up in New England. His further interests and studies included music and ethnomusicology, philosophy and comparative religion, the history of art, and finally back to the history of architecture which is what he focused on in his doctoral studies.