This seminar course will look at both the history and the practice of writing about cities, using texts as a way of understanding cultural attitudes about cities, both in our time and over the past two centuries. There will be special attention given to architecture criticism, but the course will by no means be limited to writing about buildings; we will also look at important essays and works of history and even novels, memoirs and poetry that in a meaningful way illuminate the city, the buildings contained in it, and the life lived within it. Some of the writings will be highly personal; others will be more general, but what they will share is a belief that the architecture of the city is more than a backdrop to human life—it is a defining element in it. There will be several short writing assignments as part of the course.