Many architects and architectural theorists today are engaged in a critical questioning of widely held yet inadequate beliefs and processes, including unrestrained progress, instrumental reason and social control. These driving social forces have brought about a devaluing of human work and nature that courts ecological disaster and a degrading of our physical environment. Architects may formulate a resistance through careful reflection on: the role of the human faculties of imagination and memory in design and construction; the significance of decorum, of public and private realms and of boundaries in out buildings and cities; and the limits of the architectural profession's intrusion into all dimensions of life. The course will focus on several cultural critics, both writers and architects, assessing the value and limitation of their contributions. Investigation will be guided by a vigorous tradition of thought (extending through the nineteenth century to the present) which has defined the word 'culture' as an idea of a whole way of life (and conflict) for individuals in a community. This is formulated as a challenge to the dominant values of society. Material is presented as two-hour lectures.