Crash Course: The Hall of Architecture

UPDATE: March 21, 2018
Due to worsening road conditions, we are cancelling this morning’s Crash Course: The Hall of Architecture class. We will add a make-up session on April 18. Stay safe out there!

The Hall of Architecture is one of Pittsburgh’s most treasured spaces. Maybe you’ve visited many times, but have you ever wondered about the original buildings? Beginning with ancient Greece and ending with the Renaissance in Europe, this four-week course will explore the styles, meanings, and uses of some of the buildings represented by the casts. Come away with a greater understanding of the significance of the early buildings chosen in the 19th century to grace our impressive hall.

March 21 and 28 with Carrie Weaver

From the gleaming marble of the Parthenon to the arches of the Colosseum, the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome has been a source of wonder and amazement for centuries. Even today many of our modern buildings and institutions are derived from Greco-Roman models. Discover the major works of architecture crafted by the ancient Greeks and Romans and learn how these cultures influenced one another in their own time and beyond.

April 4 and 11 with Jacqueline Lombard

Monumental European structures like Chartes Cathedral, the Abbey Church at St. Gilles du Gard, and Lorenzo Ghiberti’s masterful Gates of Paradise, are just a few of the architectural time capsules of the medieval and renaissance periods. Uncover how artists and architects across cultures constructed these immense works by negotiating the art of the ancient past with new styles to create buildings that defined important moments in architectural history and inspired generations of architects.

About the Instructors

Dr. Carrie Weaver is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a classical archaeologist, specializing in the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean world, with an emphasis on funerary art and architecture, burial practices, and the analysis of human bone. Dr. Weaver has excavated in Pompeii and Sicily, and studied human remains from the United Kingdom, Rome, Sicily, and Turkey. She is the author of The Bioarchaeology of Classical Kamarina: Life and Death in Greek Sicily (University Press of Florida, 2015), and the results of her research have been published in The American Journal of Archaeology, The Journal of Roman Archaeology, The Journal of Greek Archaeology, and The International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

Jacqueline Lombard is a Ph.D student in the History of Art and Architecture Department at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned her MA in 2017. She studies the art history of the medieval world with a particular focus on how cross-cultural communication and exchange impacted artistic production. Lombard is currently working on her dissertation, which explores how sculptors understood and articulated ethnic and racial identity in medieval Europe. Jacqueline has taught and mentored students across disciplines at Pitt. She has presented her work at several national conferences, and was also a member of a Fulbright-Hays research team that has produced curriculum on Ethiopian art history and culture for university and K–12 classrooms.