ARC3309H
Instructor: John Harwood
Fridays 12:00pm - 3:00 p.m.

The word “capitalism” gets kicked around a lot in many circles, and architecture is one of them. This course is designed to introduce M.Arch and other graduate students to political economy in a serious way, so that they can develop a deeper understanding of the meaning of the term. Beginning with the physiocrats, passing through utopian socialist and Marxian economics, and concluding with the neoclassical and neoliberal syntheses, we will be reading classic texts of political economy as a backdrop to discussions about how students wish to organize their own practice in relation to these influential theoretical and physical forces. We will also be paying close attention to the actual design of economic instruments, such as ledgers, printed money, stamps (or franks), credit cards, and even server installations and cryptocurrency, to discover how design has contributed to the state of our current and future economic systems.