Interior Architecture

IAR 543 flyer for fall 2021

The past is everywhere. All around us lie features which, like ourselves and our thoughts, have more or less recognizable antecedents. Relics, histories, memories suffuse human experience. Each particular trace of the past ultimately perishes, but collectively they are immortal. Whether it is celebrated or rejected, attended to or ignored, the past is omnipresent.
— David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country

Course Overview

This seminar is designed to provide students with an overview of how historic preservation philosophy has evolved from the nineteenth century ‘s issues with conservation and historicism to contemporary issues of sustainability and social justice. This course encourages students of Interior Architecture, History, and those in related disciplines to develop well-informed personal philosophies and approaches to making decisions about the historic built environment within the broad context of historic preservation.

To achieve this purpose, students will participate in a series of discussions based on assigned weekly readings related to historic preservation and contemporary issues of social and economic justice; sustainability; community revitalization; and interpretation of difficult places.

Further, each student will select a relevant topic to investigate and develop as a research project throughout the semester. Suggested topics will be discussed in class. The individual research project will be developed into a polished illustrated paper formatted in an Adobe InDesign template. Outstanding briefs will be included in the Historic Dimension Series, a student online publication series found at Gateway Community Collections: The Historic Dimension Series.

Undergrads may register for IAR/HIS 443 and graduate students will register for IAR/HIS 543.

Questions? Contact: csvann@uncg.edu