Notes on education and research around architecture

Journal of Architecture

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 415-441

  Cunningham, Allen ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 63149092992     PISSN: 13602365     EISSN: 14664410     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13602360500285542     Document Type: Review

References (39)

1. The educational theories which inform current activities are in direct descent from Plato, Erasmus, Vergerio, Newman and, most recently, Russell and Martin. Bertrand Russell was concerned, first, with development of the intellect: 'Education in the sense in which I mean it, may be defined as the formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world ... (it) ought to foster the wish for truth not that some particular creed is the truth.': Principles of Social Reconstruction (Allen & Unwin, London, 1926)
2. and: '... throughout education from the first day to the last, there should be a sense of intellectual adventure'. And: 'Whenever it is possible, let the student be active rather than passive. This is one of the secrets of making education a happiness rather than a torment.': On Education Especially in Early Childhood (Allen & Unwin, London, 1926)
3. And: 'No one is fit to educate unless he feels each pupil an end in himself, with his own rights and his own personality ... Reverence for human personality is the beginning of wisdom in every social question but above all in education.': Sceptical Essays (Allen & Unwin, London, 1928)
4. Collins, Peter, 'The Eighteenth Century origins of our system of full-time architectural schooling', The Journal of Architectural Education, Vol.33, No.2 (1979)
5. Blondel, J-F., Mercure de France (August, 1747)
6. Blondel, J-F., 'Discours sur la nécessité de l'étude de l'Architecture'(Paris, 1754)
7. See Cairns, Stephen, 'Design media: architecture and the grounds for invention'. The Journal of Architecture, Vol.10, No.3 (July, 2005). '"Design", as we know, is a complicated term. Many of the tensions embodied in it are foundational. They stem from the way we have come to understand design today - as an applied art, a practice focused on the pleasures of usefulness - and its heritage, dating back to the Renaissance... Carl Goldstein ... encapsulates both the centrality of disegno to Renaissance art practice and the arcane nuances of its meaning: "usually rendered in English as 'drawing', its connotations were broader than that, and more abstract. Disegno was understood to comprise the common foundation of all the visual arts - painting, sculpture and architecture - to be the 'father' of the arts and principally responsible for distinguishing them from the crafts. In Vasari's words: 'Disegno is an apparent expression and declaration of the concetto [or judgement] that is held in the mind of that which, to say the same thing, has been imagined in the intellect and fabricated in the idea' ". Disegno, then, is a [thoroughly] intellectualising activity far different from, and not to be confused with, descriptive drawing.'
8. Blondel, J-F., 'Cours d'Architecture iv', LXXXIV (1771, 1777)
9. Steinberg, Johnathan, 'Has anyone seen the Zeitgeist?', New Society (3 April, 1980)
10. Lethaby, W. R., 'Apprenticeship and Education' (Leicester, J. Stimson, Art School Press, 1913-14)
11. The Bauhaus Manifesto is quoted in full in Gillian Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed (London, 1958)
12. See Wingler, Hans M., The Bauhaus (MIT Press, 1969)
13. See Itten, Johannes, Design and Form: the Basic Course at the Bauhaus (Thames and Hudson, London, 1964)
14. See Whitford, Frank, Bauhaus (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984)
15. 'All things on this earth are a product of the formula: (function times economy) ... building is a biological process. Building is not an aesthetic process ... architecture which produces effects introduced by the artist has no right to exist. Architecture which "continues a tradition" is historicist. the new house is ... a product of industry and as such is the work of specialists: economists, statisticians, hygienicists, climatologists, experts in ... norms, heating techniques ... the architect? He was an artist and is becoming a specialist in organisation ... building is only organisation: social, technical, economic, mental organisation.' Hannes Meyer, quoted in Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, op. cit
16. Rowe, Colin, The Present Urban Predicament: some observations, The Second Thomas Cubitt Lecture (Thomas Cubitt Trust, 1979). 'Physics envy', a state of mind identified by Denise Scott-Brown, was recycled as quoted by Rowe in this lecture
17. Morris, Charles, Prospectus of the New Bauhaus, Chicago (1937-38)
18. Reilly, Charles H., Representative British Architects (London, 1931)
19. Sharp, Dennis, AA Authors: AA 125 Exhibition Catalogue (AA Publications, London 1974)
20. See Reilly, Charles H., Scaffolding in the Sky (Routledge, London. 1938)
21. Donald Schön in 'The Design Studio: An Exploration of its Traditions & Potential' in the series Architecture & the Higher Learning (RIBA Publications Limited for the RIBA Building Industry Trust, 1985) discusses the insertion of vocational studies into the academic ambience: 'What Nathan Glazer has called the "major" professions of medicine, law and business, along with such "minor" professions as social work, education and town planning are based on an epistemology of practice embedded in the modern research university where these professions have established their schools. On this view, professional competence consists in the application of systematic professional knowledge - to the instrumental problems of practice. The professional schools have, in greater or lesser degree, accepted a normative professional curriculum made up of the relevant basic science, the relevant applied science, and a "practicum" in office, clinic, field-work or laboratory, where students are supposed to apply to everyday practice the scientific knowledge they have acquired in the classroom. But, increasingly, leading practitioners and educators in these professions have become aware of the crucial importance of indeterminate zones of practice which do not lend themselves to the theories and techniques derived from the normative professional curriculum. Their attention has turned to the dilemmas of practice under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and uniqueness. In the face of increasingly strident criticisms from the lay public, and from within their own professions, they have become attentive to issues of value-conflict and morality. They have begun to shift their attention from technical expertise to artistry and from problem-solving to problem-setting. And, with this shift of attention, they have begun to question the adequacy of the normative professional curriculum as a preparation for a life in the professions.'
22. Architecture is an epistemological category apart, defying academic prescriptions and, consequently, prejudicing its academic status - whereas other disciplines are accorded legitimate status by being structurally autonomous, architecture is 'illegitimate' because it steals. The following categorisations (excepting Architecture) are derived from Tony Becher, 'Public Faces, Private Lives', The Times Higher Education Supplement (December 9, 1983). • in PURE SCIENCES: enquiry is cumulative, each finding builds upon previous discoveries in linear progression; problems may be sub-divided; the primary concerns are quantifiability; the appropriate outcome is discovery or explanation; • in THE HUMANITIES: work is reiterative, some issues recurring, different findings emanating from the same phenomena; where scientists seek universality, humanities pursue the particular, striving to understand complexity not simplify it; the appropriate outcome is understanding or interpretation; • in TECHNOLOGY: the central concern is to produce things; knowledge is as much knowing 'how' as knowing 'that'; qualitative judgements are involved in design; the appropriate outcomes are products and techniques; • in PURE SOCIAL SCIENCES: intellectual understanding is regarded largely as a means towards knowing how, towards formulations of policy and determination of practice: it relies on soft knowledge, on coming to terms with human complexity, not to explain or master the material environment; there is no evident sense of progression; the appropriate outcome is formulation or interpretation of complex phenomena; • in ARCHITECTURE: selected information and techniques derived from adjacent disciplines and subjects appropriate to the task on hand are synthesised through design; there is no developmental progression; value-based judgements predominate: claims pertaining to the universal are rehearsed in the particular; the appropriate outcome is the creation of memorable environments
23. Nelson Goodman, Ways of World-making (Hackett Publishing Company, 1978): 'the arts must be taken no less seriously than the sciences as modes of discovery, creation and enlargement of knowledge in the broad sense of advancement of the understanding ...' and, 'Even if the ultimate product of science, unlike that of art, is a literal, verbal, or mathematical, denotational theory, science and art proceed in much the same way with their searching and building'
24. Popper, Karl R., Conjectures and Refutations - The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Henley, 1963)
25. Schön, Donald, 'The Design Studio', op. cit
26. Knight, Stuart and Madge, James, (1976), 'The Sixth year Group'; a programme at the Architecture School, Polytechnic of Central London (latterly the University of Westminster)
27. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (Harper & Row, 1971)
28. Plato's definition of education. Patrick Nuttgens, Learning to some purpose, Burton Design Award (Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, 1977), observes: 'For the profound attraction of Plato's thought was precisely to offer the intellectual an escape from the mundane world of everyday work and living. Reality was not in this world; reality was in the world of Forms or Ideas, to which the everyday world was a more or less successful approximation. What a wonderful sleight of mind, turning things upside down and finding the most respectable philosophical justification for the privileged world of clear and perfect unities not to be found in the imperfect, flawed and confused world of industry and work.'
29. Newman, Cardinal John Henry, The Idea of a University (originally published 1873; re-published, Doubleday, New York. 1959)
30. Mellors. Wilfrid, The Key and the Kingdom (New Destinations; the Cockpit Lectures - Greater London Arts Association and the Cockpit, 1976). Mellors, Professor of Music at Hull University, derived his educational theories, which he put into practice in Hull, from the creative propensities of children: 'A good fifty years ago we discovered that children were "naturals" as visual artists and that the criteria which we and they applied to their productions weren't radically different from those applicable to the grown-up artist. The basic premises were the same; and though many child artists withered with puberty and the growth of consciousness, there seemed much to be said for the view that an awakening of the visual imagination was the most, spontaneous and necessary fundament to an education both of senses and intellect.'
31. Le Corbusier: Précisions sur un Etat de l'Architecture et de l'Urbanisme (Paris, 1930), trans. Precisions (Cambridge, Mass., 1991)
32. Newman, Cardinal John Henry, The Idea of a University, op. cit
33. The 1958 conference on architectural education, sponsored by the RIBA, was held in Oxford (see Martin, Leslie, Report on the Conference on Architectural Education [Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Ixv, 1958] and Martin, Sir Leslie, 'The Oxford Conference', Architectural Education 1, ed. Stephen Trombley, RIBA Magazines Ltd). The most significant outcome was the intent to emulate the academic standards of the universities and the effect was epitomised in its most extreme form at University College, London. Abercrombie, M.L.J. and Hunt, S.M., 'Ten years development in a School of Architecture' (1977) describes the educational philosophy and the results. The early years of study should be devoted to 'fundamental theory' (virtually undiluted pure science and mathematics) and the more 'practical' aspects of architecture learnt in the postgraduate years. Drawings should be the sole means of communication and studio design exercises should be limited so as to avoid the 'realistic problems favoured in some schools which encourage students to reach conclusions with inadequate understanding of the problem.' Great faith was placed in scientific method and analysis and none in instinct. The results were far from successful. The report quotes some adverse comments of RIBA Visiting Boards and many student reactions, the following perhaps summarising the findings: 'The divorce from reality and from the immediate accessible world was a sad thing; architectural education was, at UCL, at the time, fighting for academic respectability not for quality' In 1970, a subsequent RIBA-sponsored conference was held at Cambridge
34. see MacEwen, Malcolm, 'The Cambridge Conference', Architectural Education 1, ed. Stephen Trombley, RIBA Magazines Ltd
35. Martin, Leslie, 'Education Around Architecture', Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, No. 77 (1970)
36. Hill, Jonathan, 'Criticism by design: drawing, wearing, weathering', The Journal of Architecture, Vol. 10, No.3 (July, 2005)
37. Donald Schön, op. cit., articulates key aspects of scientific method. 'Glazer [Nathan Glazer, 'The Schools of the Minor Professions', Minerva, 1974]
38. and Schein [Edgar Schein, 'Professional Education', McGraw Hill, 1973] share an epistemology of professional practice rooted historically in the positivist philosophy which so powerfully shaped both the modern university and the modern conception of the proper relationship of theory and practice. Rigorous professional practice is conceived as essentially technical. Its rigour depends on the use of describable, testable, replicable techniques derived from scientific research... Practice can be construed as technical, in this sense, only when certain things are kept clearly separated from one another. Deciding must be kept separate from doing. The rigorous practitioner uses his professional knowledge to decide on the means best suited to ends, his action serving to "implement" technically sound decisions. Means must be clearly separated from ends. Technical means are variable ... But the ends of practice must be "fixed and unambiguous" ... And finally, research must be kept separate from practice. For research can yield new knowledge only in the protected setting of the scholar's study or scientific laboratory, whereas the world of practice is unprotected and uncontrollable
39. These tenets of the positivist epistemology of practice are still built into our institutions ... Just as Thorstein Veblen [Thorstein Veblen, 'The Higher Learning in America', reprint of the 1918 edition, Kelly, New York] propounded some seventy years ago, the university and research institute are sheltered from the troublesome world of practice. Research and practice are presumed to be linked by an exchange in which researchers offer theories and techniques applicable to practice problems and practitioners, in return, give researchers new problems to work on and practical tests of the utility of research results... Medical education offers the prototype for such a curriculum, "diagnosis", "cure", "laboratory" and "clinic", a language since diffused to other professions. From the perspective of this model of professional knowledge, it is not difficult to understand why practitioners may be puzzled by their own performance in the indeterminate zones of practice.'