New York / Paris

Students in the program enroll in either the Architecture Option or the Urban Studies Option and share in a core of courses while embarking on their specializations.

First-term core courses:
1. A6769 - History of the American City
2. New York and/or American History

Second-term core courses:
1. A4030- The Development of Paris
2. A4031- History of the European city
3. A4029- Architecture, Planning, and Preservation: Paris

These courses ground the program in a rigorous review of urban history and urban form, provide the academic structure for the students’ comparative analysis of New York and Paris, and complement the liberal arts curricula of participating colleges.

The Architecture Option combines class and studio work to introduce design, architectural theory, and structural concepts. Through a series of increasingly complex projects that are focused on New York and Paris, design studios emphasize form and space-making and the formulation of public and private spaces as they relate to urban morphology. Representational and analytical drawings and model-making are woven into studio projects as a means of developing and criticizing design concepts.

The Urban Studies Option emphasizes workshop and seminar work to introduce its fields, which are placed in the contexts of urban and architecture history, historic and contemporary approaches to planning and preservation, and analysis of the social and cultural development of New York and Paris. The first term prepares students to embark on a major independent research project in Paris around a theme developed through discussion with the faculty. This option emphasizes the combination of research and field analysis as a means for developing urban planning and design strategies.