Theses & Arguments

Students:

The grading is coming along, and I just wanted to put out a couple of exemplars of very fine opening theses statements.

On Essay #1 Banham

"Banham's view of Los Angeles departed distinctly from that of many architects and urban planners who saw LA as a meaningless sprawl, and undifferentiated no man's land. Banham felt LA had purpose and merit in is development and architecture; it had followed a unique path specifically suited to its distinct ecologies and history."

• The strength of this opening is that it situates Banham among his contemporaries, and recognizing that his views oppose much of the architectural criticism of LA. Most importantly, it distinguishes between LA as planned [which Banham does not argue] and having a purpose and uniqueness [which is what Banham celebrates].
  
• The weakness is the use of "distinct ecologies": Banham does not say that LA's built environment follows the natural environment [think of his criticisms of Surfurbia as privatizing and closing off the beach], but instead selects what he sees as architectural styles that have PRODUCED 'ecologies'. As writers sometimes frustratingly do, Banham has his own meaning of ecologies here, meaning more like the way architecture makes you feel, or the milieu of a particular place like a freeway or a beach town.
  

On Essay #3
"Barcelona represents a unique city that took upon the challenge of preserving its historic areas as well as promoting it city as a globally prominent destination. This section will discuss the historic significance of Barcelona and what strategies Barcelona officials took to preserve public space."

• This opener offers a wonderful sense of the multiple changes simultaneously taking place in Barcelona, both preservation and renewal. It also brings in a sense of history and the role of globalization, key issues discussed in Return to Center.
  

I hope you can see that I was not looking for anything fancy when I say that I wanted a thesis, just something more than a preview of what you are going to say. For example, almost all of the essays on Banham or Whyte merely told me what the ecologies/architectures are, or what the elements of effective public spaces are. Those are good, but could be improved, methods of opening an essay.

Overall the work on the essays are really quite good and I'll be returning them to you tomorrow so you can know where you stand going into the final presentation/paper.

AC