Teaching Histories of Built Environments:
Online Certificate Course by CAU

Week 1: Pedagogical and Research Frameworks
The opening module of the course puts participants squarely in the task of making pedagogies and teaching. Prof. Gharipour will discuss the teaching of global architectural histories and the architectural narratives that can be developed in the classroom. From there, he turns to the question of how design and architectural history are provoked to respond to pandemics. This allows for participants to think about long-term history as well that which immediate moment makes. The module concludes with a session that helps teachers understand the value of writing research and publishing architectural history.

Dr. Mohammad Gharipour, Morgan State University, USA

Mohammad Gharipour received his Ph.D. in Architectural Theory and History from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008 and Master of Architecture from the University of Tehran in 2000. He teaches architecture at Morgan State University and is the Director and Founding Editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture. His areas of research include Japanese traditional and contemporary architecture, Persianate gardens and architecture, and restorative environments. 
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Week 2: Keywords
Is it at all conceivable that changes in the meanings of words and phrases become harbingers of changes in the ways in which we conceive or perceive social realities? Do conscious attempts at transforming the meanings of words, or even the obsolescence of the existing meanings of words in any way foreshadow transformations and upheavals in society? Such questions about words and social change are particularly vexing in the field of architecture, where a range of technical words, phrases, and categories all too smoothly come to stand in for the durability and the solidity of an existing social reality. Far from hearkening towards social change, the architect’s vocabulary so often conveys the seeming stability and permanence of an existing social reality. And yet, there are a few words in the architect’s lexicon that are not as rigid as they are made out to be. Against the very grain of architecture’s will towards solidity, these words sometimes hearken towards fluidity and point towards traces, in present-day social formations, of both, older, vanished social realities and nascent, emergent, unprecedented ones. What could these words be? In this short module, Prof. Maddipatti explores three such words: “infrastructures,” “minimum standards” and “ecology.” 

Dr. Venugopal Maddipatti, Ambedkar University, India

Venugopal Maddipati (PhD, University of Minnesota) is an architectural historian at Ambedkar University, Delhi. His research focuses on geological thinking, architectural history and ecological histories. He is currently working on a project encompassing ecological aesthetics and the social imaginary in South Asia. His publications include the book titled Water Histories of South Asia: The Materiality of Liquescence (co-edited with Sugata Ray at the University of California, Berkeley, Routledge 2019) and Gandhi and Architecture: A Time for Low-Cost Housing (Routledge, 2020). 
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Week 3: Making Connections Across Disciplines
Through two key exhibitions about architecture since Independence and a project on urban architectural ethnography, Prof. Mehta places the teaching and the practice of Indian architectural modernism as a major pedagogical project that thinks about change and continuity as well as the creation of future architectural imagination

Dr. Kaiwan Mehta, CEPT University, India 

Mehta has studied Architecture (B. Arch), Literature (MA), Indian Aesthetics (PGDip) and Cultural Studies (PhD). In 2017, he completed his doctoral studies at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru, under the aegis of Manipal University on architectural ornament and its relationship to the city and metropolitan experience, with a specific focus on Mumbai. Since March 2012, he has been the Managing Editor of Domus India and since 2017 he is Adjunct Professor and coordinator of the Doctoral Programme at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad. Read More
 

Week 4: Ways of Doing and Teaching
Prof. Garimella begins by analysing how the practice of drawing has been central to the making of architectural vision. Taking various examples, the module’s second session looks at how to take historical research centred in the archive and the library and join it to ethnography, which is the analytical description of human customs and habits, to create rich architectural histories. The final session focusses on how criticism, history, and theory use and produce architectural history and ethnography in shared and different ways.

Dr. Annapurna Garimella, Art, Resources and Teaching Trust, India

Annapurna Garimella is a designer and an architectural historian. Her research focuses on late medieval Indic architecture and the history, practices of vernacular visual and built cultures in India after Independence, and genealogies and methods of pedagogy in art, architecture, design and craft. She is the Managing Trustee of Art, Resources and Teaching Trust, an organization with a research library, independent research projects and which does teaching and advisement for college and university students and the general public. Her newest book is a co-edited Marg volume titled The Contemporary Hindu Temple: Fragments for a History (2019). 
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Week 5: Crafting Architectural History
This concluding module focuses on “building knowledge” for teaching and making architectural histories through discourse, archiving, and studio work, as well as introducing participants to freely available resources and how to think of using them as pedagogical tools

Curt Gambetta, Princeton University, USA

Curt Gambetta is a PhD candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at Princeton where he is writing his dissertation titled "Substitutions of Modernity: Materials and the Modern Home in India, 1915-present.”." He is co-editor of the digital Attention Audio Journal. Prior to joining the PhD program at Princeton, he was the Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning (2011-2012) and a teaching fellow at Woodbury University School of Architecture in Los Angeles (2012-2013). He was a resident of the Sarai program of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi, India (2002-03 and 2004-05), where he was involved in a number of initiatives in new media. Curt received his MA in architectural history from Princeton University, an M.Arch from Rice University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Vassar College. Read More

Online applications will open on July 6th 2020. For any query related to the course, please write to us on cau@cept.ac.in. Applicants should complete the on-line form and attach the following documents:

• Statement of Purpose (250 words)
• Resume or CV

Alternatively, participants can download the form and email it with the required documents at cau@cept.ac.in. Add “Application for Online Course on Teaching Built Environment” in the Subject line.

Selected candidates will be notified by email and will complete the registration process through the CRDF website.

Prerequisites

Participants must have a B. Arch with 5 years of teaching experience, MArch, or an MA in an equivalent field in the arts, social sciences and humanities or in engineering.