MA in Arts and Culture: History of Architecture and Town Planning

The Master's track History of Architecture and Town Planning explores the evolution of cities, villages, and park- and landscape design in Europe within the changing global setting.

Cities, buildings, parks, and landscapes define the setting of our everyday life. Some are fascinating works of art, and no other man-made artifacts document the evolution of social relations, economic trends, technological innovations, philosophical views on man and nature, politics, and culture more eloquently than architecture and urbanism. Cities and buildings impact our everyday lives. They define where and how we live, how far we have to travel to reach our working places, our daily rhythms of our movements, the things we see when we are on our way. Their impact on health is self-evident – urban planners gave us our sewage systems, architects' decent public housing, and healthcare buildings. This master track provides students a rich and varied introduction to the history and theory of architecture and urban planning. Since healthcare architecture requires a thorough understanding of the history and theory of architecture, and the world of healthy cities can only be analyzed against the background of urbanism, the Expertise Centre Architecture, Urbanism and Health is embedded in a classical approach of architectural and urban history and theory. It allows students to specialize in classical history and theory, the health impacts of architecture and urbanism, or a mixture.

Why study this program in Groningen?

The course positions the evolution of the European city (including the post-socialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe) as intimately linked with trends and tendencies at the global scale. The input of the Thomassen a Thuessink Chair results in a clear focus on the health effects of the built environment and the phenomena summarized in the healthy cities concept (ranging from yesterday's hygienic measures to tomorrows urban guerilla gardening campaigns)

• In Groningen, the history and theory of architecture and urbanism are taught within the context of social, economic, cultural, and philosophical phenomena and geared towards the active participation of the students in the discourse on global urban tendencies. Embedded in a classical art historical context, this so-called 'Groningen school' expands the envelope of its scientific explorations and targets planners and policymakers as well as historians and art historians.
• Past, present, and future are seen as a continuum, the historian's expertise and research tools constituting a methodology that is applicable throughout this continuum, its essence being the conviction that man-made changes should always be attributed to those responsible for them.
• Groningen University promotes cooperation with universities and institutions in the Netherlands and abroad: the Delft University of Technology, Gent University of Technology, Berlin University of Technology, ETH Zürich, Erasmus University Rotterdam, International New Town Institute, and others.
• The Master's track offers possibilities for students to take part in the courses at other universities
• The city of Groningen is well-known for being the liveliest student city in the Netherlands, with an ever-growing international student population.

Research

The research of the Expertise Center reflects its roots in the history and theory of architecture and urbanism: it focuses on architectural and urban objects, their cultural values, and their performance (specifically in terms of health impacts). Topics range from urban biographies to designers' monographs, from building typologies to the issues at stake when modifying cultural heritage, from the morphology of post-war housing estates to the use and reuse of public space.