Part of a series of seminars examining the parallel development of biological research and architectural theory, this course focuses on the historical emergence of a “pre-architectonic condition” – a hypothetical state of life without architecture envisioned by evolutionary and architectural theorists alike following periods of global devastation and major epistemological upheavals. Topics include the creation of vertebrates and their transition from marine to terrestrial environments; human and animal use of caverns; animal habitations; the development of human tools, weapons, ornaments, and buildings as techniques of territorial expansion.