Erin Sassin
Associate Professor of History of Art & Architecture

- Office
- Mahaney Arts Center 211
- Tel
- (802) 443-5830
- esassin@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- Spring Term 2023-Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m., and by appointment
- Additional Programs
- History of Art and Architectural Studies
Erin Sassin received her PhD in the History of Architecture from Brown University in 2012. She joined the faculty at Middlebury College the same year and has been teaching courses such as “Faust’s Metropolis” (art, architecture, and urbanism of Berlin), “Gender and the Making of Space,” “Bloom and Doom” (architecture and design in Vienna circa 1900—culminating in an exhibition at the Middlebury Museum of Art), “Architectural Utopias,” and a survey of Modern Architecture, among others.
Her research is closely linked to her teaching interests: she has published articles on the public/private world of middle class women in the German Empire and the intersection of architecture, power, and ethnicity in Upper Silesia. Her book, titled “Single People and Mass Housing in Germany and Beyond (1850-1930)—(No) Home Away from Home” is forthcoming with Bloomsbury Academic.
Awarded a 2019 fellowship from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, it is the first complete study of single-person mass housing in Germany and the pivotal role this class- and gender-specific building type played for pre-war German architectural culture and society, the transnational Progressive reform movement, and Architectural Modernism in the 1920s, as well as its continued relevance. She has presented her research at CAA, GSA, SAH, and VAF, among other forums.
Currently, she’s planning an exhibition on the Bauhaus at the Museum of Art, working with Sophie Hochhäusl (UPenn) on the feminist implications of ephemeral and ad-hoc architecture constructed during World War One, and collaborating with Florence Feiereisen (German Department) on a digital project involving the infamous Berlin tenement Meyershof, “Sounding Out the Spaces of Berlin’s Working-Class Life.” Though she has been working interdisciplinary for years, she’s particularly excited that research in the Digital Humanities explicitly fosters collaboration with people from outside of her own field.
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Courses Taught
ENVS 0700
Senior Independent Study
Course Description
Senior Independent Study
In this course, seniors complete an independent research or creative project on a topic pertinent to the relationship between humans and the environment. During the term prior to enrolling in ENVS 0700, a student must discuss and agree upon a project topic with a faculty advisor who is appointed in or affiliated with the Environmental Studies Program and submit a brief project proposal to the Director of Environmental Studies for Approval. The expectations and any associated final products will be defined in consultation with the faculty advisor. Students may enroll in ENVS 0700 as a one-term independent study OR up to twice as part of a multi-term project, including as a lead-up to ENVS 0701 (ES Senior Thesis) or ENVS 0703 (ES Senior Integrated Thesis). (Senior standing; Approval only)
Terms Taught
FYSE 1407
Gender & the Making of Space
Course Description
Gender and the Making of Space
In this seminar we will investigate the complex relationship between gender and architecture, examining how the design of the built environment (buildings, urban spaces, etc.) can reinforce or undermine ideas about the respective roles of women and men in society, from the creation of masculine and feminine spaces to the gendered nature of the architectural profession. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources, we will also uncover how the social construction of gender roles and gendered spaces are—and continue to be—inflected by race, class, and sexuality.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0100
Intro to Global Visual Culture
Course Description
An Introduction to Global Visual Culture
This course is an introduction to the visual cultures of the world, with an emphasis on how images, objects, and monuments are made, experienced, exchanged, and used by groups of people with diverse religious, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds. We will focus on themes that have been taken up by different cultures and adapted over time, such as monumentality, the sacred, embodiment, science, and technology. Through a close study of these themes, we will consider how materials, cultures, and histories are transformed and negotiated through making and viewing works of art. In the process, we will challenge the art historical canon by shedding light on marginalized periods, regions, and artworks. 2 hrs. lect./1 hr. disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0230
Modern Architecture
Course Description
Modern Architecture
Rotating skyscrapers, green roofs, and avant-garde museums: how did we arrive in the architectural world of the early 21st century? In this course we will survey the major stylistic developments, new building types, and new technologies that have shaped European and American architecture since the late 18th century. Students will learn about the work of major architects as well as key architectural theories and debates. Special emphasis will be placed on the cultural and political contexts in which buildings are designed. 2 hrs. Lect./1 hr. disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0338
Gender and the Making of Space
Course Description
Gender and the Making of Space
In this course we will investigate the complex relationship between gender and architecture, examining how the design of the built environment (buildings, urban spaces, etc.) can reinforce or undermine ideas about the respective roles of women and men in society, from the creation of masculine and feminine spaces to the gendered nature of the architectural profession. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources we will also uncover how the social construction of gender roles and gendered spaces are, and continue to be, inflected by race, class, and sexuality. Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1407. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0339
Home: The Way We Live
Course Description
Home: The Why Behind the Way We Live
In this course we will examine the development of numerous housing types in America (with references to Europe). The prevalence of the single-family home today and its importance as the symbol of the “American dream” was never a forgone conclusion. In fact, the American home has been the focus of and battleground for cooperative movements, feminism, municipal socialism, benevolent capitalism, and government interventions on a national scale. 3 hrs. sem. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.*
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0341
Faust's Metropolis: Berlin
Course Description
Berlin: History, Architecture, and Urbanism in Faust’s Metropolis (in English)
In this course we will investigate the rich and complicated built environment of Berlin. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources we will uncover how the city has been transformed from a cultural backwater during the early modern period to the current capital of a reunified Germany. By the conclusion of this course, you will be comfortable “reading” buildings and spaces and will be able to navigate both the physical city of Berlin and the many layers of history buried within. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0364
State of Emergency/Aftermaths
Course Description
The State of Emergency and its Aftermaths: Kitchen Design to Counter-History
In this class we will uncover how architecture and design have mitigated and exacerbated the human tragedy of modern industrialized war in the 20th century. Taking the First World War and its inheritances as a through line to the present-day refugee crisis, we will discover how conflicts have manifested spatially (refugee camps to military installations, villages to capital cities), how design cultures of education, care, and memory emerged from battle and conditions of scarcity, and how war often blurred the meaning of what constitutes “architecture.” Shifting the focus from trenches, monuments, and imperial building projects to the architecture of the everyday, we will think about the politics of food systems and garden design, urban (and rural) recovery and reconstruction efforts, the creation of ephemeral and ad-hoc architectures, the role of mechanization, technology, and governmentality, and the gendered implications of states of emergency. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.*
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0375
Exhibiting the Bauhaus
Course Description
Exhibiting the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus (1919-1933) was an experimental school, a modern laboratory for artistic innovation. In three different German cities over a period of 14 tumultuous years three different artistic directors, their colleagues, and students challenged the traditional hierarchy of the arts by placing the fine arts, design, and architecture on equal footing. With the help of primary and secondary source readings, we will not only consider the Bauhaus’ far reaching influence on the practice and teaching of art, design and architecture, but also its enormous social and political impacts. Taking these ideas as our point of departure, our class will work with select works from the holdings of the Sabarsky Foundation in New York City (including those by Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Anni Albers and Oskar Schlemmer). A major part of our inquiry will involve the planning of an exhibition of these original artworks at the Middlebury College Museum in the spring of 2020. 3 hrs. sem
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0530
Upcoming
Independent Architect. Design
Course Description
Supervised independent work in architectural analysis and design. (Approval Required)
Terms Taught
HARC 0711
SNR Thesis: Research/Writing
Course Description
Senior Thesis: Research and Writing
This course is a continuation of HARC 0710 which consists of ongoing, supervised independent research, plus organizing, writing and presenting a senior thesis. (HARC 0301 and HARC 0710).
Terms Taught
Requirements