The Making of Cities
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this urban studies seminar organized around four themes: the city and the urban, spatial forms of the political, world systems and urban economies, and environmentalism. Lectures and debates move between historical and contemporary urban formations, examining infrastructures, buildings, and plans as artifacts that generate spatial structures. The course frames cities as embedded in broader processes of territorial structuring, tracing how urban areas depend on and reshape those larger systems. Alongside seminar discussion, students complete a semester-long individual design-research project, developed through presentations and dedicated workshops. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and project guidelines as posted on MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access with no certificate offered. The course suits students interested in architecture, planning, or the political and economic structures underlying city formation across different eras and regions.