A couple of weeks ago, while i was visiting him at the School of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Otto von Busch told me about an extraordinary experiment that architect Armin Blasbichler had carried out with 21 of his architecture students at the University of Innsbruck. I didn't get much details, except that Blasbichler's students had been assigned to pick up a bank in the city, study it, identify its Achilles' heel and plan a bank robbery. — we-make-money-not-art.com
5 Comments
Is Swedish archtiecture education really that underfunded?
Architecture students are finally beginning to think like Wall Street. But too little, too late, yo?!
Finally!!! Some training students can use to have income after they graduate. It would be sorta like that movie "Point Break" where they knock off banks so they can work the unpaid internships with starchitects.
I think this project is both ridiculous and cool.
First off, the statement "Architecture is always illegal" - posture much?
Saying no one stole anything from a bank is not entirely true - if the students had conversations with bank employees under false pretenses that's maybe not illegal per the University's legal department but it *is* stealing their time, no? I personally don't think taking advantage of someone else's lack of being in on the joke is ethical or good business practice - which is why I hate shows like Punk'd. I think I'm in the minority on this, though.
I love the analytical thinking and imaginative problem solving required. But what if it had been a plan to steal something from, say, your grandparent's house? Or your own apartment? That would, to me, have provided a less ethically-challenged project and put the students more fully in the dual role of potential aggressor and potential victim, which is a very interesting and common place for an architect to reside.
(Love your Point Break reference, jbushkey.)
"Architecture students are finally beginning to think like Wall Street. But too little, too late, yo?!" - Once architecture students start thinking like Wall Street I think the profession of architecture is in for a real loss. Sure we architects can and should pursue more strategic and tenacious financial models - I'd like a raise too - but to idolize a system which gains self-defining success through self-benefiting opportunism and exploitation would mean sacrificing the great altruistic qualities of the profession, not to mention the its prestige.
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