Exploring Pittsburgh
The city of Pittsburgh is at once our (permanent or temporary) home and the site of many of our studio projects. In this class, students will start exploring Pittsburgh: as built environment in which their work might be situated, as cultural context they need to interpret, and as creative material for their own work.
![Rothstein, Arthur. Cars parked along Allegheny River, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1938. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [detail] https://www.loc.gov/item/2017723800/.](/sites/default/files/styles/16_9_768x432/public/2024-10/48111_%20Torello%20-%20Francesca%20Torello.png.jpeg?itok=LUe7jAG3)
Rothstein, Arthur. Cars parked along Allegheny River, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1938. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [detail] https://www.loc.gov/item/2017723800/.
The city of Pittsburgh is at once our (permanent or temporary) home and the site of many of our studio projects. In this class, students will start exploring Pittsburgh: as built environment in which their work might be situated, as cultural context they need to interpret, and as creative material for their own work. The class is designed to give students a deeper understanding of the relevance of the historical context on the physical changes they observe in the urban fabric, starting from their studio site and neighborhood. By learning about key moments in Pittsburgh’s urban history, critically engaging with evidence (from maps to archival material to everyday objects) and participating in occasional site and museum visits, students will learn to read cities as complex and layered, shaped by invisible forces as much as by visible ones.