AH30590 Woman & Modern Architecture

Academic Year 2024/2025

Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Arts and Crafts Movement provided women with the means to express themselves artistically while earning a respectable livelihood. This module will address the ways in which women have engaged innovative architecture and design ever since, whether as professional architects and designers or as clients, makers, tastemakers, and users. Among the women whose work will be addressed are Gertrude Jekyll, Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, Eileen Gray, Jane Drew, Denise Scott Brown, Zaha Hadid, and Grafton Architects. Feminist approaches toward the writing of the history of modern architecture and design will also be explored, alongside considerations of how women were able to build careers in these fields and also what constrained or hindered them.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

Be able to recognise the contributions that women have made to the history of architecture and design since 1850
Be able to identify the historiographic methods, including feminism, that have been used to study this body of work
Have an understanding of the shared agency for the production and reception of a building or work of design in this period
Understand the degree to which opportunities in these fields have or have not been gendered
Be able to present one's research orally
Be able to critically analyse a text
Be able to lead class discussion
Be able to write a scholarly essay appropriate for a Third Year student of Art History

Indicative Module Content:

Individual sessions will focus on such topics as Arts and Crafts workshops, garden design, Bauhaus weavers, journalism, and philanthropy as well as case studies of individual architectural practices.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

12
Seminar (or Webinar)

24
Specified Learning Activities

95
Autonomous Student Learning

95
Total

226
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This is a small-group, seminar-based module. It is taught through a one-hour weekly lecture and a two-hour seminar. The weekly lecture provides an overview of the week’s topic. The weekly seminar is focused upon individual active / task-based learning by means of class debates, discussion and student presentations. Advanced research, writing and citation skills are developed through in-term assessments and a semester-long 4,000 word research project. Autonomous learning is advanced through student-led debate and discussion of set primary sources and / or student
presentations each week. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Assignment(Including Essay): A 4000 word essay, with 5% of the mark for the module assigned for the submission of the topic and annotated bibliography and 35% for the final written work. n/a Graded Yes

40
Reflective Assignment: A reading journal with a 200-250 word entry on one reading per week. n/a Graded No

10
Individual Project: An oral report on one of the readings to be followed by questions asked of fellow classmates. n/a Graded No

20
Individual Project: A 20 minute oral report on the subject of the essay to be followed by responses to questions posed by fellow students and the lecturer. n/a Graded No

20
Participation in Learning Activities: Active participation in class discussion. The grade for this will also take attendance into account. n/a Graded No

10

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback will be provided in advance of essay submission on proposal and bibliography. Feedback will be provided individually on essays, oral reports and class participation. Group feedback will also be provided on essays and oral reports.