S1-EU 2 : 1° CYCLE LICENCE

The period studied being particularly long, the important thing is to give the students reference points and a basic culture, from Ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages and the modern Western period, Romanesque and Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical, passing of course by Ancient Greece, the Ancient Roman Empire, Paleochristian and Byzantine, the humanism of the Renaissance up to the Enlightenment of the 18th century.
The course proposes to approach these periods through the analysis of emblematic buildings or urban ensembles, their principles of construction and composition, while placing them in their cultural, economic and social context. The approach is based on both spatial and constructive analysis and historical study.
All this will lead us to measure the richness of the heritage of major achievements but also of lesser known buildings (especially on a regional scale).

Thus, this course aims, on the one hand, to give first-year undergraduate students the keys to learn to read, analyze and understand architecture. It is an introduction to the vocabulary, tools and methods for describing and interpreting forms. It also aims to familiarize students with the complexity of the factors (socio-cultural context, political and economic circumstances) that preside over the conception of architecture, and to highlight the mutations and inertia of forms, techniques and mentalities over the long duration of the periods studied. Finally, it intends to provide chronological reference points as well as knowledge of buildings and urban spaces that served as a reference for the subsequent development of architecture.
The aim is to anchor their discipline of reference in a rich tradition and to share a common culture, thus preparing them for the semesters to come.


Because it emphasizes the principles of reading architectural representations, composition and construction, as well as vocabulary, this course resonates with representation, architectural theory, construction and project teaching. It is also in line with the chronological logic of the history courses in the bachelor's degree.

The purpose of the architectural analysis tutorials is to help students discover architecture and the city; to sharpen their eyes, to concretely experience the reality of space, to perceive its effects, scales, and materiality, to put words to the elements and notions of architecture, and to learn to notice and describe them. TDs allow for a synthesis of the various teachings of the semester in all disciplines through observation and the direct application of knowledge and know-how.

Understanding, acquisition of knowledge:
- Understand the form, the spatial devices, the static functioning, the uses, the urban inscription of a building; relate the elements that determine the organization of the space;
- Discern the issues at stake and the specific choices of the architect;
- to appropriate the vocabulary and the main issues of architecture;
- apprehend the recurrence of themes encountered in history and their ability to enrich reflection on the project today.

Restitution :
- describe and represent; use the architect's means of observation and communication: analytical drawing, geometric representations, written expression;
- Organize and prioritize a subject, order it in texts and images;
- Represent the spatial translations of an idea or a system of architectural thought.
- Use the tools of analysis to question what one has looked at.