Monday 30 March 2009

Rethinking Architectural Education

[I will try to re-post this with working links for footnotes.. a novelty for me. Any advice on how to do this?]

Right, here we are. As you will see, I footnote anecdotally, I have a lot to say and I say it convolutedly.. There is an essay to be written on the very notion that such an essay title “Rethinking Architectural Education” can meaningfully be set, setting it borders on the belief that any rethinking is good rethinking. My basic thesis is architectural education must be rethought in the light of our environmental situation, which will call into question all our present philosophical assumptions, and should end up with a community integrated model school, based on an idealised Rural Studio.


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Rethinking Architectural Education

“Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence. For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse. Education, far from ranking as [our] greatest resource, will then be an agent of destruction."[1]
E. F. Schumacher

To be moved to ‘Rethink Education’ is a question of value, and ultimately of morality. Any assessment of the value of education must chiefly be by its ends or effects, that is the resulting practitioners, and their buildings and lifestyles so formed by that education. To value these, and hence the education, this essay ventures the environmental, ecological and social impact of such practice as the most total and objective measure of success.

As such, this essay will suggest that imminent[2] environmental human catastrophes will judge[3] our profligate and uncritical schools of architecture whose self-interested courses have moulded superficial students pursuing ‘starchitect’ futures[4]; such schools, by whose dis-integrated establishment,[5] have served further to fracture the relational ecology of locality and industry[6] which hold intact a sustainable society. [7]

This is made emphatic given that the construction industry is substantially responsible for our misuse of energy and toxification of the environment.[8] Furthermore, the built environment is the stage on which consumer choices are played out; it is the nursery in which a nation’s aspirations are disseminated, and the chief point of reference for a society’s value judgements. The environmental problem is an architectural problem, change to which must start with architectural education.[9],[10] This essay will first consider the problems facing architecture as a practice, the roles that graduates of architectural education are taking, and the means by which they might address themselves to the problem, finally considering ways present education succeeds or fails to equip them for the task compared to possible alternatives.

The Egan Report on the problems and inefficiencies besetting the British construction industry, questions particularly the role designers play in adding value.[11] Its criticisms, while valid and pertinent, are predicated on no further imperative than of medium-short term economic gain,[12] being either indifferent to ecology, or presuming the capitalist hegemony to be one self-correcting and capable of addressing such a problem larger than its own internal wranglings and profits. Architecture finds itself caught as servant to these assumptions, complicit with its client and public in such indifference.

The beginning of a rethought architectural education will acknowledge such philosophy of the time and its own responsibility to moderate by demonstration of an alternative. The contemporary conception of architecture is affected by Schumacher’s ‘metaphysical disease’,[13] manifested, I will assert, in four key crises: of disembodiment or individualism; fragmentation of disciplines; the killing of history; and a preoccupation with spectacle. These in sum constitute a failure to submit to a wider biotic community[14]

The centrality of the individual within the architecture of Modernity has come at substantial cost to community and ecologies. Its illusion of the un-dependent self is maintained only by denial[15], aided by technology. Further, with the advent of hi-technology, the platonic dualism of body and mind, privileging the cerebral over the physical, has come home to roost. Individualism has ‘liberated’ citizens from their locale, has ‘disembodied’[16] them, collapsing a placed or narrative understanding of reality and undermining the loyalty an architect might otherwise have to society as a whole.

The fragmentation which Egan[17] and others[18] lament is broadly speaking a child of this Romantic Individualism.[19] It manifests the belief in a metanarrative of chaos; it is technological advance at the expense of community,[20] the self-interest which abstracts architecture from its purpose.

The third key principle informing the atmosphere of practice is a suspicion and contempt for history and its associated attempts at social engineering. With unprecedented clarity Pruitt-Igoe’s demolition[21] established the attitude of denial that was to define the relationship of planners and public to even recent folly, and it set them forever after to be wary, even fearful, of considering moral imperatives in architecture. Pointedly, Anthony Vidler finds a parallel between crises of confidence in the public realm and in education, having common roots in the disenchantment with post-war optimism[22]. These denials have the secondary, but not unintended, effect of dissociating design from consequence.

Fourthly, of significance, we live in an age of simulacra[23] and spectacle[24] which has emerged from the coinciding of a hyper-individualist value system and certain material conditions, notably abundant fossil fuel. This forum, where architects become but peddlers of shallow novelty, has been forged under the coercion of power-mongerers of the day[25], and through the confusion of truth,[26] and all along willed by a public who consider art a ‘game of distraction’.[27] And the victims of this addiction to novelty have been coherence of language, the value of tradition, and the well-being of the voiceless: ecology and the poor.

Into this context we introduce the role of ‘architect’ which the profession has carved for itself, a problematic intermediary role: simultaneously the impotent ‘sophist lapdog of commercial imperatives’[28] and antihero-artisan Howard Roark, “a man who does not exist for others” [29]

The continued egotistic and adversarial[30] self-definition of the architect practising an architecture ‘red in tooth and claw’[31] is alienating the profession at a time when every other report calls for collaboration and partnership across industries[32]. The profession is accused of protectionism[33], of using ‘introverted language’[34], and even of using ‘stylistic eclecticism as a joke at the client’s expense’[35]. These are traits which undermine the trust put in professionals, and hinder the potential for architects to effect positive change in building practice.

To achieve sustainable architecture there is a need for architects reconciled to the moral task to which they are commissioned. Only by this can we develop the trust of an ‘educated public’[36] and by this the requisite integration for sustainable building.

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“There is no lighthouse keeper. There is no lighthouse. There is no dry land. There are only people living on rafts made from their own imagination.”[37]
Dominic Crossan


We will consider now issues more acute to the university, tenets which undermine our task and which ill-equip graduates with the values, skills and knowledge for the task of practising sustainably in the face of the challenges outlined above.

The relative nature of truth,[38] the foremost issue, may have begun as ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’[39] but is now to be considered as ‘the basis for a free society’[40] Not only is this often unspoken and bizarrely absolutist claim self-refuting but it requires a certain amnesia. Relativism’s damage is pervasive, making dialogue impossible,[41] cementing the premise that there can be ‘no clear good’[42] and ‘no core wisdom on which designers agree’[43] - exactly the quality of wisdom which Orr makes an ecological imperative[44], and ultimately it proliferates the lie of ‘amoral’ architecture which is a denial of the environmental consequences under which graduates will practise.

The second premise which is at odds with our task is the industrial and abstract nature of the university. Woods observes the defining influence of industry’s demands on the evolution of the architecture school[45], which Rowe extends commenting that ‘the university shaped itself to an industrial ideal—the knowledge factory.’ [46] This is a move to an abstraction[47], which it is argued powerfully by Berry, disintegrates community and accountability in our use of language and so undermines the integrity of an education[48]

If Berry’s leap from abstraction to language is wider than is justified here, some more immediate effects of so modelling the university may offer intermediate steps towards the principle. For example, Hauerwas argues that the university, by allying itself to the notion that knowledge begets earning power and marketing itself as a provider of such, enforces on itself a necessary ‘placelessness’[49] lest it suggest the earning potential is limited equally geographically. Or, from another direction, the university, via subsidies, is a tool of the state, a state which derives legitimation by ‘promising to save us from illness and death’ .[50] In this way risk-averse[51] short-termism[52] is conferred to the university as it is responsible to make good on these promises promptly, and so privileges science, particularly medicine, over the humanities.

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“I don't need sex - the school of architecture fucks me all the time”[53]
A 44,951 facebook member group


Further to these unsustainable tenets, various traditions curious to architecture schools are criticised in literature on the subject, chiefly these three: isolation of the school from community; the primacy of the individual versus collaboration; and irrelevant academicism of the curriculum.

The isolation spoken of is practical, geographic and conceptual. Schools typically operate at a distance from the public, industry and even the natural environment and so miss an opportunity to engage construction realities and issues of genuine human need.

The schools which are increasingly academic lose the realities of construction[54], aesthetics are disconnected from design realities[55], which results in a loss of attention to craft and making[56], further fracturing the industry. Spiller is a voice in favour of such ‘freedom’ of the academy[57], we must ask if such is possible only by architecture’s place as ‘capitalist service for hire’[58] and ‘handmaiden to the rich’,[59] and whether in the environmental future we will be able to justify such wanton luxury. It is their very isolation which insulates schools from such criticism, and the ignorance of genuine human needs which makes their education irrelevant. This loss of social concern was highlighted across the literature, profoundly by Dewar[60] and Lynch[61].

To create architecture with broad and deep sustainability the concern is more than charity. Education by its form and situation must challenge notions of entitlement held by students by confronting them with their human dependence[62] and common humanity with society’s poorest. Hauerwas points the contemporary university to Gregory of Nazianus’ work, ‘On Love for the Poor’ as a corrective to the politically motivated individualism of detached education. [63]

The second key complaint made of architectural education is its damaging lack of training in collaborative work born of the emphasis on the ‘primacy of the individual’[64]. The ‘tortured artist’[65] advocated in architecture school is modelled on the Romantics’ ‘Artist with a capital A’[66] and Kant’s autonomous individual - who becomes for Vidler an autonomous architect pursuing art for art’s sake, and running the risk of solipsism, detached from a foundation of any social or cultural vibrancy.[67]

Thirdly the academic hijacking of architecture school by faculty ‘more interested in words than buildings’[68] comes under fire from employers who complain graduates emerge with ‘too much theory and not enough reality’[69], considering ‘technical knowledge as secondary’[70] trained as ‘deconstructivist clones’[71]. The question of what an architect needs to know is not an easy one, nor will an answer be universal, but we can say that the problem has been exacerbated by dichotomising theoretical and practical knowledge. Alexander notes the embarrassment of students faced with parallel slides to concede goodness in vernacular architectures at variance from the postmodernism advocated in studio.[72] Cook notes the success of under-published architectural scenes, notably in Switzerland as a case in point against the glut of theory elsewhere.[73]


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“I tell my students, it’s got to be warm, dry and noble”[74]
Samuel Mockbee


There are successful alternatives for the content of architecture courses and for structures through which they are taught. This essay will conclude with some alternatives addressing the three key issues of individualism, the isolated department and the academicism, giving particular attention to Rural Studio and the successful ways it addresses the dilemma of the architect in postmodernity through an engagement with the real from the academy.

Arguing the counterintuitive virtue of collaboration as a means for nurturing appropriate individuality[75], Woods declares RIEA School, while it existed, was a demonstration of the potential of collaborative work.[76] Steel suggests more radical than mere group-work, we need to move away from an emphasis on ‘personal creativity’ … to ‘rigorous forms of collective understanding’,[77] ‘revers[ing] our present system of compartmentalisation of knowledge’[78] ‘to anticipate a wholly new kind of learning environment.’[79] The beginnings of such are described by Potts, in the ‘Portsmouth Model’, an experiment of vertical studio teaching, which saw autonomous studios combining a cross-section of students
from all five years, producing cross-fertilising fruitful relationships.[80] Most successful of all, Woods offers Rural Studio as a chief example of collaboration[81]

Rural Studio is also cited frequently as a mode of addressing the isolation of the studio by blurring practice and education, to better socially inform and humanise student work. With no grander social goals than the dignity of the residents and on a meagre budget of $6000[82], projects such as Hay Bale House profitably engaged students in real-world social issues, and offers architectural practice a laboratory for ideas[83], and this encounter with the real is the heart of education. [84]

SCI-ARC’s ‘ever-renewable pedagogy’[85] and the AA’s ‘No tenure, no repetition, no hierarchy’[86], which succeed up to a point in making relevant their education, fall short of Rural Studio’s achievement in creating an environment for learning within a job, rather than simulating practice which strips the exchange of much of the subtlety, tacit knowledge and client feedback inherent in this practice more akin to apprenticeship.

To conclude, at a time when architecture is popularly conceived as an individualist’s, ahistorical spectacle, education has examples of alternatives to its academic isolation, if we are willing to learn humility from the unglamorous work displayed by Rural Studio.

[1] Schumacher, E. F. (1993 [1973], London:Vintage) Small is beautiful : a study of economics as if people mattered - p80
[2] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) - Synthesis Report
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf (retrieved 29th March 2009) - p46
[3] Hauerwas, Stanley (2007, Oxford, MA: Blackwell) The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God - p102
[4] Nicol, David and Pilling, Simon (eds) (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p7
[5] Vesely, Dalibor (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p63
[6] Berry, Wendell (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2000) Life is a Miracle: An Essay against Modern Superstition - p41-42
[7] ‘At the heart of the concern with environmentalism are the concepts of sustainability and place: architectural education needs to address these directly.’ Dewar, David (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p94
[8] Williamson, Terry. J. Radford, Anthony Bennetts, Helen (2003, London: Spon Press) Understanding Sustainable Architecture - p86-7
[9] ‘It is time to change the reality of architectural practice, and we should begin by changing architectural education.’ Woods, Lebbeus ‘Architecture School 301’ (2009)
http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[10] ‘Education is the profession’s lever over its own future’ - Milliner, Leonie (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p227
[11] Egan, Sir John, (1998) Rethinking Construction: The Report of the Construction Task Force - p26
[12] Egan, Sir John, (1998) Rethinking Construction: The Report of the Construction Task Force (Citing of ‘profit’ as guiding incentive or measure of success) p4, p7, p10, p16
[13] ‘We are suffering from a metaphysical disease, and the cure must therefore be metaphysical’ Schumacher, EF (1993 [1973] London : Vintage) Small is beautiful : a study of economics as if people mattered - p80
[14] Orr, David (1992, E.F.Schumacher Society) Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered - http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/orr_92.html (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[15] Giussani, Luigi (2001, New York: Crossroad) The Risk of Education: Discovering out Ultimate Destiny - p69
[16] Taylor, Charles (2004, Durham: Duke University Press) Modern Social Imaginaries - p1
[17] Egan, Sir John, (1998) Rethinking Construction: The Report of the Construction Task Force - p8
[18] Hawley, Christine - p11 and Dalibor Vesely - p63-4 (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael)
[19] Vesely, Dalibor (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p63
[20] Berry, Wendell (1996, Washington, DC: Counterpoint) Another Turn of the Crank - p90
[21] ‘Modern Architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32pm (or thereabouts)’ Jencks, Charles (2002, Yale University Press) The New Paradigm in Architecture: The Language of Postmodernism - p9
[22] Vidler, Anthony (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p15
[23] ‘Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation’ Baudrillard Jean (Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser) (1994 [1981] MI:The University of Michigan Press) Simulacra and Simulation - p12
[24] ‘In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.’ Debord, Guy (Trans. Ken Knabb) (2002 [1967] Paris) La Société du Spectacle
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle/ (retrieved 29 March 2009) - Thesis 1
[25] ‘abstraction and dehistorization conjoined to clear the way for a form of knowledge that could freely construct objects and their relationships’ Wolin, Sheldon (2001, Princeton, Princeton University Press) Tocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life - p21
[26] ‘In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false.’ Debord, Guy (Trans. Ken Knabb) (2002 [1967] Paris) La Société du Spectacle
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle/ - Thesis 9
[27] Bacon, Francis (in an interview with Sylvester, David) Sunday Times Magazine (London, 14 July 1963) - p13
[28] Spiller, Neil (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p60
[29] Rand, Ayn (1943, New York: New American Library) The Fountainhead - p686
[30] Nicol, David and Pilling, Simon (eds) (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p2
[31] Tennyson, Alfred Lord (1850) In Memoriam A. H. H. - Canto 56
[32] Egan, Sir John, (1998) Rethinking Construction: The Report of the Construction Task Force - p9
[33] Nicol, David and Pilling, Simon (eds) (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p4
[34] Stansfield Smith Report (quoted in Nicol, David and Pilling, Simon (eds)) (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p5
[35] Ostwald, Michael (1992) Architecture Bulletin, republished in Sydney Morning Herald, 28 April 1992 - p32 quoted in Windschuttle, Keith) (1996, San Francisco: Encounter Books) The Killing of History - p25
[36] Hauerwas, Stanley (2007, Oxford, MA: Blackwell) The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God - p89
[37] Crossan, Dominic The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (1975, Niles Argus) - p44
[38] ‘There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students' reaction: they will be uncomprehending.’ Bloom, Allan David (1988, London: Simon and Schuster) Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students - p25
[39] ‘Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.’ Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1979) Introduction:The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, p xxiv-xxv
[40] ‘The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so [the students] see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society.’ Bloom, Allan (19xx) Closing of the American Mind - p25
[41] Giussani, Luigi, (New York: Crossroad, 2001) The Risk of Education: Discovering out Ultimate Destiny - p96
[42] Vidler, Anthony (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p14
[43] Wigley, Mark (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p17
[44] Orr, David (1992, E.F.Schumacher Society) Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered - http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/orr_92.html (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[45]Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 202 http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/architecture-school-202/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[46] Rowe, Stan (NeWest Press, 2003 [1990]) Home Place: Essays on Ecology - quoted in Orr, David, (E. F. Schumacher Society: 1992) Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered - http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/orr_92.html (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[47] ‘Abstraction is the enemy wherever it is found’ Berry, Wendell (New York: Pantheon Books 1992) Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community - p23
[48] ‘Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job training or by industry-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or ‘assessing’ what we now call ‘information’ - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.’ Berry, Wendell (2003, Durham: Duke University Press) ‘Thoughts in the Presence of Fear’ in Dissent from the Homeland - p41
[49] Hauerwas, Stanley (2007, Oxford, MA: Blackwell) The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God - p203
[50] Hauerwas, Stanley (2007, Oxford, MA: Blackwell) The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God - p199
[51] Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer Hursley, Timothy (2002 New York: Princeton Architectural Press) Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency - p13
[52] Orr, David, (E. F. Schumacher Society: 1992) Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered - http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/orr_92.html (retrieved 23rd March 2009)
[53] This breath-takingly cynical cri-de-coeur which titles a facebook group numbering a staggering 44,951members presents one transparent testament as much to the pervasive cynicism of this generation of students as much as it reflects failures specific to architectural education in creating architects of integrity - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2211195089 (retrieved 23rd March 2009)
[54] ‘We begin to forget that there is a profound difference between imaginary and inhabited worlds, and that difficulty, labour, destruction and contingency are always involved in the act of building’ Lynch, Peter (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p55
[55] ‘[Mockbee and Ruth] lamented that architectural education had become more about academics and less about construction… The connection between esthetics and the realities underlying design was being lost’ Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer Hursley, Timothy (2002 New York: Princeton Architectural Press) Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency - p6
[56] ‘…detached from the reality of making, become contrived and bureaucratically driven where the processes of making, thinking and intellectualising have in some way been rendered a synthetic exercise. That, for me, is one of the main criticisms of present architectural education.’ Hawley, Christine (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p8
[57] ‘…the load of economic stringency can also weigh down the ideas stage of a project and impair its creative development. Further, student architects need to opportunity to ‘turn up all the dials’ on their creativity and vision to search for what is possible and not just for what is economically viable at any point in time.’ Spiller, Neil (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p61
[58] Ghirardo, Diane (1996, London: Thames and Hudson) Architecture After Modernism - p39
[59] Dewar, David (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p94
[60] Dewar, David (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p94
[61] Lynch, Peter (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p57
[62] Giussani, Luigi, (New York: Crossroad, 2001) The Risk of Education: Discovering out Ultimate Destiny - p69
[63] Hauerwas, Stanley (2007, Oxford, MA: Blackwell) The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God - p198
[64] Cuff, Dana (1992, MIT Press) Architecture: The Story of Practice - p45
[65] Stanton, Jean (quoted in Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer Hursley, Timothy) (2002 New York: Princeton Architectural Press) Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency - p3
[66] Brand, Hilary Chaplin, Adrienne (2007, Illinois: IVP) Art and Soul - p18
[67] Vidler, Anthony (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p21
[68] Cook, Peter (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p6
[69] Vidler, Anthony (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p13
[70] Cuff, Dana (1992, MIT Press) Architecture: The Story of a Practice - p44
[71] Windschuttle, Keith (1996, San Francisco: Encounter Books) The Killing of History - p8
[72] Alexander Christopher (2002, Berkeley) The Nature of Order (Book 1) The Phenomenon of Life - p74
[73] Cook, Peter - (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p8
[74] Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer Hursley, Timothy (2002, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency - p0
[75] ‘I am convinced that a more embracive and ultimately more effective way to nurture individuality is the establishment of design studios that operate, paradoxically, on the basis of collaboration.’ - Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 301 http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[76] Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 301 http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[77] Steel, brett - (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p68
[78] Fuller, Bucminster (quoted by Steel, Brett) (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p69
[79] Steel, Brett - (2004, Chichester: Wiley-Academy) Back to School: Architectural Education - The Information and the Argument (Guest-edited by Chadwick, Michael) - p71
[80] Potts, Wendy (2000, London: E&FN Spon) Changing Architectural Education: Towards a New Professionalism - p248
[81] - ‘The Rural Studio had (has?) the right spirit, but it was of an older type of collective work, in which individual work is subsumed in the common effort. I am speaking a ‘new’ kind of collective effort, where individual works remain legible.’ Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 301 (Comments) - http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[82] Ghirardo, Diane (1996, London: Thames and Hudson) Architecture After Modernism - p39
[83] Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer Hursley, Timothy (2002, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency - p12
[84] ‘To educate means to help the human soul enter into the totality of the real’ Giussani, Luigi (2001, New York: Crossroad) The Risk of Education: Discovering out Ultimate Destiny - p105
[85] Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 301 - http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)
[86] Woods, Lebbeus (2009) Architecture School 301 - http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/architecture-school-301/ (retrieved 29 March 2009)

Sunday 8 March 2009

l'abri was

l'abri was
more than the sum of its parts
than choresome work in the yard
for some, a course in the art
of being formed by others who are
come here with nothing to prove
hoping somebody will move
their worldview to include
christ's work making everything new