At the turn of the 20th Century, with the industrial revolution in full swing, a fervent debate arose over the prospective focus of education within this new social order: whether the study of the sciences or the arts should dominate. During the inauguration of Sir Joseph Mason's College in Birmingham, Thomas Henry Huxley presented an address on Science and Culture proclaiming an education constituted wholly of the scientific perspective is equal to that of an education of a literary nature. This address was in some respect directed at Huxley's friend the great poet and critic, Matthew Arnold, who responded in kind with his own rebuttal titled, Literature and Science. In this essay he expanded on and clarified his position insisting that to know ourselves and the world, we have to know the best that has been thought or said in the world. It seems these two perspectives have commingled freely within the praxis of architecture for centuries. Though in this day and age the academic and practical worlds seem greatly at odds over what is useful knowledge.
Now as we proceed into the age of information we again find ourselves reexamining the foundations of education. In the realm of architecture this vetting has come to center stage with the threat of closure of the Cambridge University School of Architecture after failing to meet university research standards. Within the context of the phrase ‘research standards' one might ask what measure is there to weigh such standards for architecture? Architecture for me is a discursive science and within that framing there can be no precise measurement of the value or type of research conducted. It would seem the real question at hand is whether architecture meets the needs of modern life, reigning it in from a predominately ‘art' orientated perspective to an even more ‘scientific' approach.
The current exhaustive search for the new leadership at the Architectural Association is another turning point for architectural education. In the same spirit of debate between Arnold and Huxley the AA created it's own set of discourses (PDF) between October 25th and November 5th 2004. Here we present a selected few to further generate discourse and discussion on education and architecture”¦
- John Jourden
Simon Allford
Accreditation
Read/Discuss
Alan Balfour
Possible Futures for the Architectural Association
Read/Discuss
Nasrine Seraji-Bozorgzad
Pedagogies of Architecture Beyond the Beaux-Arts: Theories, Methods, Structures and Forms. And Finally, Did you know?
Read/Discuss
Peter Cook
The Happy Volcano: A Description of the I deal Architecture School
Read/Discuss
Zaha Hadid
Read/Discuss
Andrew Higgott
A Tradition of Experiment: The History of the AA School
Read/Discuss
Jeff Kipnis
My Thoughts on Architectural Education
Read/Discuss
Ben Nicholson
7 Lampless Questions
Read/Discuss
9 Comments
Who was the previous chair?
mohsen mostavvi...
Mohsen Mostafavi headed the AA for close to 10 years and was voted out on an early election call that saw his tenure end by a slim majority of only a dozen or so votes. He is credited with bringing the school back from financial uncertainty by implementing more thoroughly the small graduate programmes then in existence and adding more: DRL, EM-TEC, Environment and Energy, Landscape Urbanism and expanding the enrolment of academic programmes not merely the design programmes. With the added courses the school doubled its size and became, hence, more profitable and ultimately a more robust school able to compete with government/ publicly endowed schools (ie the Bartlett, Columbia, et al) by way of services for the students. The argument for a lack-of-confidence vote within the school was that 10 years was a reasonable amount of time for him to implement a vision and that change would be advantageous, given the current standing of the school.
Let's see what happens next.
nice reads...thanks.
i wonder what other schools have this level of conversation about where they are going.
Into the Immeasurable
Understanding the New Umbau School of Architecture
William Tate
Director, Umbau School of Architecture
&
GK VanPatter
Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute
Co-Founder, HUMANTIFIC / UnderstandingLab, New York
NextD
Who will lead design in the 21st century?
http://nextd.org
enough of this crap nextd. if you want to advertise, contact archinect and pay for an ad.
On the contrary, I find that the nextd site has a lot of great content on the subject of design education. I would highly recommend it.
thank you so much for posting summaries of the talks. this level of discussion about architectural education is amazing and breath-takingly ambitious. it makes me very excited for the AA's future and in turn, the future of other architecture schools. it has certainly been long overdue for a discussion of this magnitude to take place, and it's great that the AA has seized this opportunity for extensive reflection that the departure of their dean has given them.
i do believe that AA folk have elected the very right and ambitious person. the Director of the AA21, as Brett entitled it, i'd say - i hope - brings the AA to the very prosperous state. i'm not talking just in monetary sense, rather in all-360-senses. most-likely a kind of [re]volution.
herein, i like to sa few words on the AES 'Architectural Education Symposium' took place at the AA on last october-november. there were many other similar events 'roundtables, conferences, symposiums' at MIT, Parson, ... i think they didn't even talk about the one of the essential key points in architectural education. i mean the faculty members (professors, tutors, instructors). recently, i have read an article on the 'arcCA' the journal of the american insitute of architects, i'd quote it partly here. "The missing point, hoever, is the untrained teacher," Dr. Shahneshin says. " It has been the practice of many architecture schools t throw practitioners into teaching with little or no preparation for this important role. teachers initially find themselves without mentors or a clear direction. Having an excellent practice recod or obtainang a PhD does not guarantee the creation of an architecture teacher." He says, "I see a need to inprove architecture education though an advanced, postprofessional Architecture Teacher Education program". As we know, we had had our sad experineces being in schools such as in RMIT Australia, UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich, or others ... where there is no reason. the so-called "famous" "architects" being called and invited to join the school to teach (i mean they think bringing that kind of peolpe will bring reputation to their school). but unfortunately, most of the cases fail. beacuse these invited so-said "star" "welknown" architects do not spend time in schools/units/studios with students. just they go to the school (travel to school) one time or 2 times per months to see what is going in studios... maybe they go just to check their mailbox ...
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