One of four courses offered as part of the Barcelona Study Abroad program.
The course content and structure are designed to sponsor, on the part of the student, an informed engagement with the city, one that is both analytical and visceral. Through a mix of lectures, media workshops, discussions, and site visits, students are encouraged and empowered to experience, and learn from, the city they are visiting.
Each site visit comprises of a three-hour long series of structured exercises. Each exercise frames the site differently, prompting a varied set of field observations that, by the end of the on-site charrette, add up to a thick description unforeseen at first. Students are transformed from passive recipients of information delivered on-site to active interlocutors of the space or building under study.
The lectures supplement observations and analyses made during site visits and provide background information on specific projects as well as on the particular characteristics of the city and its inhabitants.
The readings are drawn from a variety of sources: architectural history, urban design, planning history, cultural studies, tourist studies, art practice, and the political and cultural history of Catalunya. Discussions based on the readings attempt to speculate upon the similarities and differences between Barcelona and Atlanta, and upon the way discussions regarding urban form and culture are framed in each location.