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This module explores interdisciplinary theories of criticism, the practice of criticism within architecture and its related disciplines, and the role of the photographic image within, and as, critical practice. Students examine how these approaches inform the writing and imaging of architectural and urban historiography today. The module begins by addressing the intersection of architectural theory and history with the history of architectural criticism in the 'modern' to 'high modern' periods. Beginning with the interwar period, it charts the aesthetic, political and ideological motivations in architectural journal production within the British architectural press, including the work of Nikolaus Pevsner, Iain Nairn, Paul Nash, John Piper and Hubert de Cronin Hastings. It then addresses the work of British critics in the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on Reyner Banham, Alan Colquhoun, Kenneth Frampton and Colin Rowe, to explore the role of theory and history within applied critical practices.

The second part of the module focuses on the postmodern turn, ‘deconstruction’ and the contemporary period, to consider evolutions in criticism and critical theory in relation to space and aesthetics from the 1970s to the present. It studies the impact of neo-Marxist, post-structuralist, semiotic methods within practices of criticism (including Jameson, Krauss, Owens and Marin), and the critique of spatial practices as allegory, aesthetic, political unconscious and utopics. It concludes with recent reassessments of criticality in contemporary architectural and art criticism as reaction to a so-called ‘crisis of criticism’.

Regular, collaborative student presentations based on archival/architectural journal research, will occur throughout the course. The marked submission will be in response to seminar subject/content, and may comprise a work of theorised reflection on a given moment in the history of criticism or a performative work of criticism in response to a given artefact (building, drawing, exhibition, etc.). Students should make use of relevant archival information and visual material in addition to demonstrating an engagement with relevant texts from the module. Submissions are developed through individual and group discussion in seminars, and a tutorial during the term.