Taught In English

There is no language prerequisite for courses at this language level.

The majority of students taking this course will be American.

Students are required to take a minimum amount of contact hours of French a week in order to take a course in English.

Students will view one of the world’s great cities through its architectural achievements and alterations over an extensive history. Starting with accomplishments under the Romans, Paris has evolved into the showcase it now is. The purpose is to trace such changes by marking the most significant moments in that long evolution: the Romanesque and medieval Gothic that followed Roman occupation; the noble brilliance of the late Renaissance and Baroque; the ambitious ordering of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the modernizing of Paris in the 1850s; twentieth-century innovations. Experience of these architectural wonders will be up-close and personal.

That is, students will be accompanied to specific, defining points in the city, at which the stages of architectural evolution of Paris can be observed. They will be instructed more fully by means of topographical maps and city plans; thus, they will come to understand Paris not only as an evolving phenomenon on the surface, but also as a product of its own economic geography. Historical knowledge is part and parcel of this experience, so Paris becomes known also as a product of its political past.

Some questions that naturally arise are:
-What was the function of the river Seine and the Isle de la Cite in the past, and what is it today?
-How did Paris come to be thought of as a model city of Boulevards? What may be their fate?
-What are the chief architectural monuments of Paris, past and present?
-Which are the most traditional corners of the city?--those which have served to give it definition?
-What is the history of its train stations?
-How have several World's Fairs served to define the city, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century?
-Has the public space displaced the space that was once for the elite? If so, when and why?
-What have been the compromises between aesthetics and functionality in the course of Paris' architectural development?
-What might the new Paris look like? and where will it likely develop? How can we tell?
ETC.