Architecture - Re: Thoughtd on architectural theory (was Re: Arquitektuur versus

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Re: Thoughtd on architectural theory (was Re: Arquitektuur versus

Adam Weiss

2005-10-17, 12:21 am

cegan@egan-martinez.com wrote:

<<snipped for brevity>>

> Sadly... for some time now, maybe as far back as the 19th century,
> some professors of architecture have felt the need to make themselves
> seem important by belittling and mystifying the students. The easiest
> way to do this is to use a "secret code" of theoretical jargon....not
> to elucidate, but to obfuscate

<<snipped>>

> If a teacher stretches your brains by using
> "sophisticated" language....and that teacher then works hard with the
> students to help them understand the ideas presented.....then that
> teacher is trying to push the students forward.

I'm less concerned with the big words than I am with a fundamental lack
of knowledge in the field. If I might go back to the distinction I made
between "arquitektuur" and architecture. A great architect knows both.

Bernard Tschumi, who was the dean at the Columbia university School of
Architecture for a time, uses huge words in his books and articles -
words like "palimpsest". In fact, Tschumi was perhaps the only
"deconstructivist" architect to actually understand most of what Derrida
wrote about Deconstruction. But Tschumi has a long portfolio of BUILT
WORKS. Damned bad-assed built works I might add. That is an architect
worthy of teaching it.

Unfortunately, and you said it before, too many professors at Rice and
at other schools are experts in "arquitektuur" and yet know little or
nothing about architecture. I had one professor who has has just one
building in his portfolio - a house from the 1980s. A year after I
finished, they hired a lady to the faculty who had been a fellow student
of mine in the M-Arch I program. No built works in her portfolio. Not
even a license to practice architecture. That, in a nutshell, is what I
wish would change.

<<snipped>>

> Instead, you and every young architect/intern ....anywhere in the world
> ....should stop and evaluate your current position. What are your
> professional strengths....and which issues would you like to improve.

I evaluate myself and my work every day, but I also pray that in 10 or
20 years students coming out of architecture schools are better prepared
to enter the profession than ones who graduated in the last 5 years.

You see, it's not an either-or proposition. If architecture schools are
going to be improved, and they should be, more people are going to have
to question them the way I am. This is -in addition to-
self-improvement and advancement in the profession.

<<snipped>>
>
> The real trick is simple....and extremely difficult. You must stop
> whining about the past and start plotting a path towards YOUR future.
>

It's more than a little frustrating when I attempt to outline the
problems with architecture education and am essentially told "you're
right, but don't worry about it - move on."

Maybe it's that I'm idealistic, but I dream of a world maybe 15 or 20
years from now when architecture schools have been fixed. There are
small things that could be done and would, over time, go a very long way
to fix the schools.

> I hope this helps a little bit....

Well, not really, :-), but your points are well taken.

Adam Weiss

2005-10-17, 12:21 am

Pierre Levesque, AIA wrote:

>
>
> All words spoken like a future self-employed-almost-always broke future
> self-employed architect...
>
>

I dream of that. I dream of having my own firm and maybe, someday and
somehow, having a few (or a dozen or so) fellow members of the firm.

And I also dream of, perhaps, taking over an architecture school. A non
violent coup d'etat if you will. Boy things would change. I just hope
none of the redundant theorists hires a hit-man to off me before I can
accomplish my goals.... :-)

Edgar

2005-10-17, 1:21 pm

Don wrote:
> "Adam Weiss"> wrote
>
>
>
> There's an invisible yets structurally sound connection between academia and
> where the rubber hits the road.
> Your boss only considers your academic merits because the law requires him
> to.
> YOU cannot become an architect without *benefit* of law, you have to be
> licensed.
> YOU can only aquire a license after academia.
> Your boss is stuck in a very narrow market.
> He can't hire a bloke off the street and *train* him to be an architect.
> He has to hire a bloke that has been through academia and all of its
> baggage.
> This is so wrong.
> ALL of society, maybe even history itself, suffers because of this.
>
> *You cannot shackle creativity.*
> --gs, 2005
>
>

I'm not sure about elsewhere, but in California, you CAN hire some bloke
off the street. He must work for 8 years total, as opposed to 5 years
of academia, and 3 years of work (still 8 years total). Then he takes
the tests like everyone else, and he or she I should say, can be a gul
durn architect.

--
Edgar

Edgar

2005-10-17, 7:21 pm

gruhn wrote:
>
>
> <fuzzy forgetful reply> I think that Cali may be the last holdout and that
> it may not last.
>
>
> Hey, why is it that Cali is the last place letting this happen? You'd think
> they'd be the first ones to stomp it out.
>
>

Lots of changes have been going on here with licensing (IDP and such),
that it might have changed by now.

--
Edgar

Adam Weiss

2005-10-18, 9:21 pm

Edgar wrote:
> gruhn wrote:
>
>
> Lots of changes have been going on here with licensing (IDP and such),
> that it might have changed by now.
>

In Texas they've made a rule that you are allowed to take the ARE while
you're working for IDP. But in my view they really ought to put the ARE
-before- IDP. It should be an exit exam for architecture school.

That'd force the schools to change their ways - and fast. It'd force
them to bring reality back into their curriculi. And that'd be a good
thing.

Adam Weiss

2005-10-20, 1:21 am

cegan@egan-martinez.com wrote:

>
> Adam....
>
> I appreciate your thoughts, but I think you're missing something.
> While I understand your frustration with some academics in
> architecture, the fact is that there are some aspects of architectural
> learning that are better done in school, and others that are better
> done in a real-world environment. If you really think everything could
> be learned in school, then you would be saying that no one needs to
> learn from real experience. That would be disastrous for architects!

You misunderstood my post.

My view is not that everything one needs to know can or should be taught
in school. My view is only that students should leave school with a
basic understanding of the profession and an ability to work with the
necessary tools to work within the profession. This is -in addition to-
understanding architecture theory and the art of architecture.

How to do it? Very easy. Instead of repeating the same sort of
theoretical study - pre-schematic design over and over again
ad-infinitum until graduation, I say students should do fewer projects,
but carry the design further. In the fall, students take a theory-based
architecture studio like the ones they take now. In the spring,
however, instead of another theory based architecture studio, they take
a "design development" studio - in which they are expected to detail out
the project they designed and wrote about in the fall. In an ideal
world, the next year, a project is chosen from the studio for
construction, and is built - by the students.

There are already some schools and studios that are run this way - the
late Sam Mockbee's Rural Studio at Auburn university for example;
"Design Development Studios" at some of the big state schools like Texas
A&M.

Why can't they all teach reality? Why do the big-name schools like
Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Rice, et-al consider it beneath them?

<<snipped>>

> In school I want to learn the things best learned there....questions of
> theory, history, design methodology, structural and environmental
> systems, etc. Then I want to go into the real world to see how all
> this stuff is applied in making real buildings. Only after all that is
> finished is someone ready to take the exam to practice as a licensed
> architect.

I, too, want to learn those things.

But in school I *-ALSO-* want to learn the basics of how to use building
codes; the phases of a project (from pre-design through construction
administration) and what is expected in them; how a drawing set is put
together; the basics of how a building goes together; and basics of
drawing a plan (for example, that gyp is usually 5/8" thick, that a
handrail is generally drawn at 1-1/2" thick and 1-1/2" from the
guardrail, that you should look for ADA requirements before drawing an
institutional or commercial restroom if you're in the USA.... That sort
of thing). The list goes on.

It's not so much about gaining expertise in these things. Nobody can
become an expert at anything in the limited time span of a university
degree. It's about gaining familiarity with them, or perhaps even a
basic understanding of them. Understanding them the way an experienced
architect might understand the basics of structural engineering, for
example.

I've said before and I'll say again - it's not an either or proposition.

>
> Please stop thinking that the entire problem and solution is in the
> schools....

That isn't what I think at all.

> Yes the schools need to improve, but so does the IDP
> program and the commitment by offices to their interns.

Precisely.

My desires for architecture schools are part of my larger wishes that
students should enter the profession with a foundation in all aspects of
the profession, and that IDP should build on those foundations.
Employers, be they in tiny firms where it's easy or in larger firms
where it's more difficult, should take care to give interns exposure to
all aspects of projects. (They shouldn't as is too often the case,
chain interns to their computers and make them draw stair details for 6
months straight; then leave them chained and move them on to parapet
details.)

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