Semester 3: Copenhagen

September - December

Kobenhavns Universitet: 20 ECTS

(11) Urbanism and Architecture - 7,5 ECTS
The aim of this course is to present the main developments of 19th and 20th century European cities and to explore the form and the function of selected types of architecture. Copenhagen is a central reference but throughout the course, these developments will be related to international developments as well.

The course is addresses the following themes:
Urban history and the city square: the square as the organizing element of the city; modernisation as a decentering of the urban structure Modern institutions in the city: parliaments, universities, schools The harbour and the bridges, the train station, the airport and the metro Bourgeois culture and entertainment: museums, theatres, concert houses. Mass culture: amusement parks e.g. the Tivoli Gardens, zoological Gardens, panopticons, panoramas… Class cultures; on the bourgeois family, the working class family, interior decoration… Functionalism and modernism: the Nordic development of functionalism Urban growth, suburbanisation and development of new cities Cities in the experience-economy
(12) Urban Culture and Cultural Theory - 7,5 ECTS
This course aims at establishing principles for a culture-theoretical approach to the city. The course delves into seminal texts from the tradition of 20th-century cultural theory in order to outline key concepts that allow us to understand the city as urbanity, i.e. as a complex cultural phenomenon.

A variety of discourses may contribute to this project: architectural and literary as well sociological and philosophical issues will be discussed via readings of major theoretical texts.

Examples from the history of the European metropolis from 1850 to the present shall enable us to reflect upon the analytic perspectives of cultural theory. In this way, the conditions for the interdisciplinary study of modern urbanity will be outlined.

(13) Urban Analysis IV - 5 ECTS
Principles for an interdisciplinary analysis of modern urbanity will be developed and tested in case-studies that address the differentiated spatial and socio-cultural reality of a metropolitan region such as Copenhagen around 2000. A number of professional and academic approaches to the present development of the urban field will be illustrated during this course.