Topics in Architecture: The Total Corporation: The Design of Everything In a Global Context

To distance architecture from the "war machine," architects called for the reintegration of the arts after WW2. The resulting post-war Gesamtkunstwerk accompanied the development of ever larger corporations and corporate architectural practices integrating new kinds of agents into their increasingly complex wholes, from women designers and computing services to global environmental and economic models. By exploring how corporations--Olivetti in Ivrea, Hilton in Havana, JUMEX in Mexico City--operated architecture across all scales and mediums, students in this seminar will uncover the questions post-war integration was designed to answer.