The course will consist of the mutually interconnected yet consecutive lectures and case studies, interpreting the vast visual material (urban plans, building designs, architectural sketches, utopian visions, urban situations etc.). We will read and interpret selected excerpts of the relevant philosophical texts as well. The course will naturally focus on a historical development as well. The topics include:

* the Victorian greenhouse architecture as the visionary language of the future

* Russian constructivist architecture as the inspiration for the contemporary architecture of non-places (Koolhaas, Hadid)

* Le Corbusier and the desert(ed) cities of death

* city as a time-table

* the “megastructures” and modular architecture of the 60’s and 70’s

* Prager’s visionary plans to rebuild (and raze) Prague

* cosmic architecture

* war architecture

* house as a fort, house as a ship

* urban exile and loneliness

* digital city and the public space

* landing, expedition, isolation: transient architecture of danger

These topics will nevertheless lead us back to Prague, which will eventually serve as an imaginary laboratory; in this regard, the course will analyze the futuristic visions of Prague, from the modernist attempts to cure the “diseased tissue” of the city through the Nazi attempts to militarize the layout of the streets or the communist proposals of an urban revolution to the layouts presenting the possibilities and limits of Prague as the “city of the cosmic age”.

On the background of these case studies, the course will help to understand the real architectural situations of the cities we live in.