NOTE: Course information changes frequently, including Methods of Instruction. Please revisit these pages periodically for the most recent and up-to-date course information.

This course explores the role that migrant communities have historically played in the construction of New York as well as the spatial negotiations, frictions, and conflicts derived from their settlement in the city. Architecture and urban strategies have historically participated in the definition of frameworks of belonging for migrant communities. However, they have also been used as tools for the exclusion of minority communities, as an alibi in xenophobic arguments, and as mediators of assimilationist policies.

We will discuss the manifold relations of architecture and migration. Migrant individuals and communities are responsible for the design, transformation, and resignification of different structures and enclaves. We will regard both the spatial, material, and aesthetic properties of these transformations as well as the social and cultural struggles, exchanges, and dislocations that they mediate.

We will also discuss the inextricable connection between New York City and migration. The city historically served as the major port of entry for migrants into the US and continues to be a major attractor for transient populations. We will regard New York simultaneously as a city characterized by its ethnic diversity, and one in which immigrants continue to struggle to secure housing, assert their presence in public space, guarantee their access to resources, and defend their rights.