Architecture

Specialisation of: Arts and Culture
Degree: Master of Arts in Arts and Culture
Mode of Study: Full-time, part-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September, February
Language of instruction: English
Location: Leiden
Croho/isat code: 60087
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Architecture is a specialisation in the MA in Arts and Culture. In this specialisation you not only study architectural history from the perspective of the architects, their designs and the way in which their work is implemented, you also pay attention to clients, the public and how the public responds to architecture and the built-up environment.

Central themes include:

  • Italian baroque
  • exchanges between Italy and the Low Countries in the period from 1500 to1750
  • alternative architecture discourses in the 20th century, from regionalism and traditionalism to neo-baroque
  • architecture theory, where thinking on the impact of buildings on the public is key, as in classical rhetoric or the sublime.

In Leiden you will study these themes in close co-operation with the Dutch interuniversity art history institutes in Rome and Florence. Excursions are a structural part of the programme.

Staff

Professors teaching the MA in Arts and Culture

For the complete list of lecturers and more information, see the staff page on the department’s website.

Prof. Kitty Zijlmans

Kitty Zijlmans

“The close relationship between art, science and material culture is key to the study of art history.”

“We teach students to take a fresh approach to art and to ask themselves: What is our own concept of art? We can’t just apply our Western concept of art to works from other parts of the world, which is what we have been doing for centuries. International art history doesn’t just consist of European and American art.

The basic principle of World Art Studies is that art history is an approach to art from across the world. We, therefore, take a global and comparative perspective.

For example, we compare Western art with that of Asia. This ‘global’ aspect is a must in the world of today with its enormous wealth of art production. Moreover, students also want to know how Western art relates to other art traditions. Also, science plays an important role in our master’s programme.

In the present-day, very changeable world of art, there is room for many new forms and concepts. Artists, for example, raise such issues as the extent to which man can be moulded, and they make us look differently at political and ethical questions. What does art say about the times we live in?

We also incorporate into the master’s unique museum collections in Leiden, from Naturalis and Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, to the University Library with its special collections. For us, the close relationship between art, science and material culture is key to the study of art history. We are constantly making cross-overs.”