In a continuing debate over Francois Roche's cancellation notice to SCI Arc, a past SCI Arc instructor Mitchell De Jarnett writes a blog entry, asking if Roche's letter is also calling for the resumption of an older model of education, one where impassioned, erudite disagreement is valued over conformity.
In a continuing debate over Francois Roche's cancellation notice to SCI Arc, a past SCI Arc instructor Mitchell De Jarnett writes a blog entry, asking if Roche's letter is also calling for the resumption of an older model of education, one where impassioned, erudite disagreement is valued over conformity. HMC Arhitects Blog
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I remember a lot of the arguments that occurred during my schooling in the 90s - you'd be sitting in review and suddenly someone's project became the catalyst to renew disagreements between two or more of the academic giants. Not only where you getting a chance to witness these debates first hand (often you had absolutely no idea what was going on until after you've had a chance to get some sleep) but the work that you and your classmates were doing was the surface on which these debates were being carried out. It made you feel like you were part of something much larger.
are students missing out on this these days?
It's a nice point of view, toaster, to take the position that a review in which critics argue larger issues on the surface of a student project is a valuable learning experience for all. I tend to agree with this point of view.
But my sense in recent years has been that students hate that. Maybe it's reading what people write here on Archinect (I've read a LOT of bitching from students here over the years!) and maybe it's the type of institution I'm exposed to these days (Cranbrook/Penn previously, state schools recently), but the attitude does seem to be that students are fee-paying customers and therefore the critique should be all about them.
I'm not saying critiques *shouldn't* be about the student: trying to help them improve their abilities should be foremost. But there seems to be a denigration of the conversation taking place about the broader topic of the profession/design theory and more of a push to cater to individual students - at the expense of a bigger conversation, IMO.
Again, maybe that's just what I'm seeing, but I think the constant calls for schools to teach more practical knowledge combined with the high tuition rates causing students to ask "what am I getting for all this money?" combined with lifestyle fitness centers on every campus are all coming together to make critics lean more towards a service-oriented critique than one that is likely to be labeled too esoteric.
But what do I know, beyond that Orhan is indeed an intrepid reporter?1
A good example is what SCI-Arc students are getting for their money...
(As of 2008)
Ming Fung- $170, 848
Hernan Diaz-Alonzo $149,400
Eric Owen Moss- $266,901
(As of 2010)
Average annual SCI-Arc tuition: $30,650.00
Source:
http://207.153.189.83/EINS/952789388/952789388_2008_059CF493.PDF
The proliferation of a technology-focused curriculum at the school has resulted in arts and humanities courses being cut, the result being a student body who have no concern for architecture in the public realm, and no real knowledge or social or political history, beyond what is required to sell their aesthetically-driven projects. The school under Eric Owen Moss's directorship has been stripped of it's identity as a hotbed of intellectual freedom and critical exploration as the older guard- those who might have been critical of Moss and his lieutenants, have either left, or been forced out. Many of the new faculty have never built, nor set foot in a building prior to it's opening party. They believe that the answer to architectural innovation is escape. In the end the school is a litmus of what many architecture schools seek to become- fashion houses catering to the luxury class.
this is maybe the twentieth time i've said this on archinet...if students learned the things they are going to do as interns in school at least half of the students would switch degrees within a week. that said,,,i am thinking that studios should be much more like cooking shows. fast under pressure charettes. a lot of them. learning to make good design decisions quickly, organization and speed are the things that matter.
From my friends who have left architecture post-graduation, I doubt any of them have regrets about going to SCI_Arc, besides the loans of course.
Some of us definitely have strong regrets in the direction the school has been going since many non-form fetish teachers left circa 2004-7.
Robots are awesome, so is the meaning of architecture!!
I am also seeing a striking parallel between the trends at sciarc, and the architecture bubble in China, so they might not be off track, just not on the track many of us believe is right.
pomotrash, i would be interested to know how much salary other school directors are making in the same field, do you have any numbers for those?
and how about the rest of the faculty in the same institution? isn't sci arc a non profit school? seems like salaries have a huge break with the rest of the faculty of lesser significance in the eyes of the upper echelon.
i can understand a faculty making 60-70 a year but next position is 180-200+, then you have inflated personalities in the sense of self importance and unhappy feelings of discontent in the ranks. i sort of know the sci arc output and i doubt any of these people are twice, triple or the quadruple of the wo/man over others when it comes to teaching and personal contributions to discourse. in fact, they are quite the dinosaurs in the description of the sci arc and greater community. from what i read in various public posts here in this website, discontent is not negligible and it is multi faceted.
i wonder students and rest of the faculty have any position about it or the three monkeys concept is part of the contract?
* btw, a rare disclaimer from me as follows:
i have the knowledge of these tax documents and their content over a year now and i categorically refused to make them a subject of any of my articles, posts etc.. it was beyond my style of discussion as i never ask people how much money they make.
now that this made public in my column, i am commenting on them with my take, in relation to its ramifications.
I understand the desire for discourse and argument to galvanize one's own unique theories on architecture, but I do feel that too much of the emphasis is on the reviewers needing to be the ones engaged in this discourse.
I believe that a well-rounded student seeking to be a true (capital A) Architect (designing with intention and emotion while understanding the built environment beyond what their new 3-D program can pump out) would benefit greatly by taking an active role in defending their own theories and beliefs during reviews. Critics grandstanding and having a pissing contest for 30 minutes does NOTHING to add value to the student or enrich their own ability to handle the challenges to their design decisions they will face when sitting in front of a client.
The result of most schools now seems to be producing (lower-case a) architects that merely learn to produce images that are at a glance interesting, but upon further review may have no real thought or theory behind them. Throughout my 6 years of architectural education I saw numerous students breath a sigh of relief when they realized that critics were going to fight amongst themselves during their review, sparing them the embarrassment of being revealed as the shallow graphic shock artists they really were.
Bring on the arguments, but make them value the studio, the jury and the student equally. Without student involvement the juries might-as-well just go to the A+D museum with the students and spare them the sleepless nights developing their own designs.
Orhan,
You can look up any 990-Institution online through the IRS or another database agency for free since it's part of the public domain. My guess is that many schools overpay their faculty and administrators. Ever ask what lecturers make? You'd be astonished. One friend told me FOG usually gets almost 20k to make an appearance, a costly sum that is more than SCI-Arc's semester tuition. Pay scales usually are an estimation of what the professional would be losing since they are performing duties as educators, rather than spending time in their offices. However, one might simply argue that if everyone is paid equally, then salaries would drop to more modest levels and everyone would win, including the students. The problem is that schools like SCI-Arc, Yale, the GSD, etc... are bent on hiring professionals who believe they should be paid more. All this breeds is an old-school capitalist form of competition which means that no one is looking out for anyone else, and the students are left to spend most of their lives in debt. In the end schools are scrapping to get people who they see as at the top of their field, not because these individuals are necessarily good teachers or studio critics, but come with a brand, one which can be parlayed by the schools as a way of attracting more students. My beef with SCI-Arc is that is was founded on the principal of hiring active practicioners, and not full-time academics. If this is the case, then Moss, Ming, and Hernan should compensated on the basis of what their losses would be since they are in the classroom instead of being in the office. I'm speculating here, but I doubt Hernan's office nets over 100k per year, even with him present, since the market for fantasy is pretty tight these days. But I digress...
Recently I asked the question on my blog ArchitectureEV.blogspot.com "whether there is room for a school to operate with a fixed and rather specific architectural agenda, OR if due to normative societal evolutionary trends every school is destined to become synonymous with schools everywhere else - with the only difference being that some student's are in Cambridge and some are in Idaho."
My thought was that schools are becoming exceptionally ubiquitous in the content that they market AND produce to the point that individual identity of an Architectural agenda has melted into the collective cloud of available architectural adventures. I was and would still suggest that it may be profitable for a school to identify its agenda as a relatively narrow discourse and in doing so could develop a certain expertise and production of knowledge. The danger, as is pointed out today in posts regarding Francois Roches' cancellation letter to SCI-Arc is that a school could become much too insular and introverted, re-creating the SILO condition that many Universities and Schools have been trying to break in the interests of the positive outcomes of collaboration. The dilemma of how focused versus how open is not easily answered but in an age where data and information is immediate and exposure is blatantly present it is unimaginable that one could readily cut themselves off from the possibility of tertiary influence. Coincidentally, FOCUS, RIGOR and RESEARCH are three under-employed concepts and I appreciate their usefulness (productive capacity) no matter what the object of attention may be.
Moss fetched about 450K per annum and gleaned another 60K in 2013 from sci-arc for a study. See guidestar.org. He pocketed 1/40 of the annual revenue. Maybe he got too expensive and the board cut him loose.
Education is a racket.
The kids who graduate from sci-arc are renowned for their low level of 'skills'. Hire and weep.
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Roches' work looks weird but it may pay some dividends if studied. Doesn't look like it can be built; perhaps some day.
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