Skip to main content
Loading Explore guides…
Fixing Architecture Education · Acedra
Home
Explore
Engineering
Fixing Architecture Education
Sign in to save
Chat
If YouTube asks you to sign in, open the video on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube
Reload player
Transcript
62 segments
Copy
Hide video
0:00
Architecture schools are broken. Instead of teaching how to create beautiful buildings in places that most people love, they focus on novelty and experimentation. But there is a true renaissance on its way. A small number of universities started teaching the lost arts of building and now their students are creating absolutely stunning designs. I traveled all the way to the US to see some of these promising developments and to share them with you.
0:23
And at the end, we'll look at ways of how we can fix architecture education with tips and advice for the students out there who feel lost in the modernist world. This might be one of the most important videos I've ever made. So, let's get to it. Part 1. Architecture School I always wanted to create beautiful places, with lively squares and streets lined by beautiful, harmonious buildings. During classes, I used to draw doodles of street patterns and canal houses.
0:50
Thinking about what kind of place would be ideal to live in. After high school, it was an easy choice of what to study. Urban planning in Amsterdam, followed by urbanism in Delft. However, I gradually discovered that what I wanted to learn isn't being taught anymore. But why? Today, architecture education teaches students how to design buildings using modern construction materials, to experiment with form and shape, and to create innovative architectural concepts for the 21st century.
1:17
There is a strong focus on sustainability and inclusion, but also on the creativity of the student. As part engineer, part artist, they are required to turn their visions into functional buildings. New buildings are supposed to fit in the current zeitgeist, use modern materials, and have that minimalist, modernist look. Ornament, classical proportions, decoration, or facade composition are not seen as functional or necessary, and are generally not taught.
1:42
Most students who enter university will not have any doubts or questions with this way of teaching, and they will happily accept this as the only valid way of doing architecture. Some students, however, arrive at school with completely different ideas about architecture and are hoping to learn some of the old architectural design skills. They're in for a surprise, because those skills aren't taught anymore. Most students have no idea about this beforehand, including me.
2:06
So, what did students learn before everything became modernist? Part 2. How we got here.
2:14
This rather heavy package contains the four volumes of Elements and Theory of Architecture by Julien Guadet, a professor at the famous Parisian Ecole des Beaux Arts. These books are filled with some of the most concrete, useful knowledge on how to design buildings. A lot of which could still be used today. Everything from how plumbing is laid out, to creating foundations and walls, to how to design schools or even the parliament.
2:37
The books illustrate how teaching architecture has changed over time. Up until the 1930s, architecture education is much more practical and skills based than it is today. Students are drilled to have a solid understanding of how buildings, construction and materials work. They're supposed to become good draftsmen and artists. They're skilled in sketching, watercoloring, lettering, layout, and proportion. After the 1930s, however, everything changes.
3:03
The world after World War I brings new ideas about art and architecture. The Bauhaus, for example, with Walter Gropius and many others, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright take architecture in a new direction. They reject things like ornaments, elaborate facades, or even sloped roof construction. Just before World War II breaks out, some of their main figures hit the jackpot. When they emigrate to the USA, they're welcomed with open arms and
3:27
are promptly installed in prominent positions at the most prestigious universities and institutes. Here, they have free reign to introduce their new systems of instruction, with many elements of the Bauhaus. All the unnecessary ideas of the past are thrown out. Gradually, other universities follow suit. The last remaining traditional teachers adapt to the new reality, or are replaced, bullied away, or simply fired. Around the year 1970, the transformation is complete, and
3:54
practically all architecture education is now strictly modernist. But there is one remaining problem. Not all history can be ignored. And the knowledge to renovate buildings should also not be totally lost. So, what they do is this. They put architectural history in introductory history courses and invent a new subject. Historic preservation. This way, methods and techniques from the past stay firmly in the past and are only applied to existing buildings.
4:21
While for new construction, only the new ideas of modernism can be used. So, you might think, what's wrong with this? All the innovation and focus on new techniques, it all fits a 21st century, right? Well, the modernist way of designing and thinking isn't necessarily the best one for all problems. Because there is another way of looking at architecture. And another way of looking at what we need to achieve with our buildings.
4:44
Once you see things from that point of view, you discover that modernist architecture education isn't suited for solving our greatest problems at all. Before we dive into that, let me tell you something cool. I'm working on a new website that will have all my videos, interesting projects, and much more, all under one roof. For this purpose, I use Squarespace, the sponsor of today's video. Squarespace makes it super easy to create a completely personalized
5:07
website using their new guided design system called Squarespace Blueprint. For example, I could choose between a professionally curated layout or build a site from scratch. Squarespace also allows you to make and sell courses, Has built in analytics and powerful, flexible payment tools. And it's all super easy to use. Check out squarespace. com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/TheAestheticCity
5:30
to save 10 percent on your first purchase of a website or domain. And now let's get back to it. Part three. Problems. The complete change of architecture education after the 1930s has created many problems, and it is about time that some of these are called out. First of all, a disclaimer. These are my opinions, and I expect people to disagree with them. Also, not all architecture programs are alike, so the following points contain generalizations that might not apply to all schools.
5:57
Most of the people working at architecture schools are intelligent, hardworking people who want the best for this world. What I'm going to describe comes from my own experience and from many conversations with people who studied at many different universities. So with that out of the way, let's get to it.
6:13
Point one, misguided priorities. First of all, modernist education is extremely focused on experiment, innovation, and novelty. This leads to students spending a lot of time on trying out new things, while that time could have been spent on the basics first. After all, they're going to face hundreds of problems later on, and they have limited time in university. So why not first get a good foundation and innovate later?
6:36
For me, the material use and the knowledge of it hurts a bit that they're not really there anymore in modern buildings. And of course, there's skyscrapers too. It's hard to do something else in concrete to just think about the material. Of course, in some moments you have to use modern ones from big firms, um, for some problems, but we don't, I feel like we don't really think about material as much. Also, when we learn about architecture, it's, we just design crazy forms.
7:04
At the end, we just, stuff in the material that fits kind of the color of the facade or something, but it's not, I feel like the material is one of the most important things and we don't really think about our design in that sense that we justify the value of each material.
7:22
The lack of time for basic architectural design skills and learning rules of leads to stress and insecurity among students, who feel inadequate as they are left to figure things out on their own. Sometimes they're not even sure what they learned during a semester. The many architectural design skills that students once had to master, like hand drawing, watercolor rendering, proportion, symmetry and order, or in depth material properties in craftsmanship, have been replaced by endless work in
7:47
Revit, parametric design and inventing concepts instead of buildings.
7:52
Point two, modernist monoculture. Hearing these stories and reports from students from architecture schools all over the world, it seems that students are taught a very narrow, rigid view of architecture, that is the modernist view. In other words, you could even speak of brainwashing. This sounds much more dramatic than what happens in real life, so please hear me out. Changing people's views doesn't always require some evil plan, with angry sermons or bad intentions towards students.
8:20
Remember that most professors and teachers have had this education themselves, and have never been seriously exposed to another way of looking at architecture. For many people, different is scary, so it is only logical that they will try to keep things as they are. For most universities, teaching students this way is just business as usual. First of all, simply by choosing what to teach and what not to teach, the worldview of the students can be shaped.
8:44
The second way of influencing happens in studio, where teachers can quickly spot students who design things that don't fit in their worldview and correct them. The third way of changing behavior and thought is simply by grading a student's work, because no student wants bad grades, and most people look up at those who perform well. Guess what the other students will try to emulate? The student who creates something classical and fails? Or the abstract concept that gets an A?
9:09
So, this brainwashing process happens quietly, without the students or even the teachers noticing. But all hell breaks loose if someone steps out of line and someone suddenly does something that is classical or traditional. Unfortunately, it also leads to a not so diverse culture, in which other ideas are not allowed to thrive. For those who want to design traditionally, this can lead to social isolation, a feeling of being misunderstood, and loneliness.
9:32
Even worse, these students can lose their passion for design, as they have to create things they don't believe in. Point three, pretentious pseudoscience. I believe that modern architecture education desperately tries to be scientific, but isn't really succeeding. Vague theories that are impossible to prove, written up in nebulous language, are used to defend designs no one would like to see built across their own home. Students paired each other's vague words to sound interesting, writing
9:57
up descriptions of their projects that make little common sense. If there was any interest in hard empirical knowledge, students would certainly stop designing flat roofs in very rainy climates, or show interest in the eye tracking research of Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander. Architects might stop designing places where people feel miserable, or Unsafe and bored, but that requires interest in real science.
10:20
Point four, the ivory tower. The disinterest in the preferences of common people and in other disciplines is one of the greatest problems with modern architectural education. We have pressing issues to solve nowadays, like pollution, inequality and a housing crisis. But at the same time that we need millions of new homes in attractive, livable neighborhoods, instead of looking at buildings and places that people love, our schools keep teaching students how to design abstract architectural
10:47
concepts that aren't always helpful. This leads to places where people don't want to be. Which is a waste of time, energy, natural resources and money. This becomes extra clear when we look at polls about what kind of places people like most. These show that 75 percent of the population prefers traditional architecture and urban environments. But these statistics are never discussed in architecture schools. Isn't it important that students learn how to create places that people actually like?
11:13
And isn't it at the very least interesting to study people's preferences?
11:19
I think feedback is a very important thing which is being missed out because not just the house owner who builds it, that matter, that opinion matters, matters by everyone because if you build a house 99. 9 percent of the people would never enter it. They just see the outside facade. And in a city, I think that's a very important thing and the people have their voice in it. Point five, the messiah complex. In countless lectures, the importance of solving global problems is
11:51
drilled into students minds. Of course, we must solve these problems. However, not every problem can be fully solved by architecture. More importantly, the modernist approach to solving these problems isn't always the right one. Take sustainability for example. We can indeed reduce emissions by building differently. But too often, the focus is too much on the technical performance of a building, while very basic questions are ignored, like what happens to the building after 50 years?
12:18
Will people fight to keep this building, because they like it? A building can be completely carbon neutral, but still be broken down after 30 years, because people hate it. How sustainable was it then really? Some universities are on the right track by teaching about low impact materials like ramped earth, adobe, strollbill installation and timber. I'd like to see natural stone construction added to that list, as it lasts almost forever.
12:42
But do not pat yourself on the back when you create places that people hate, as your communal roof garden that produces five tomatoes will not fix the fact you just created a new ghetto, or solve world hunger for that matter. The fact that you say you're fixing a problem, and are spending energy on it, doesn't mean you're actually solving the problem. So we built today, in my opinion, for the opening of the building, so it looks nice when you open it.
13:08
But ten, twenty years later, the aging process of it is horrible. And we see that almost everywhere. And people don't care how it looks in the future, it just has to look nice for the first ten years.
13:25
Finally, there is hypocrisy in architecture schools. Faculties often say that they celebrate diversity and inclusion. But is that really so? For example, is it really inclusive to have a culture on your university that does not accept people who want to learn about traditional architecture? Do you really care about diversity if you prefer universal architecture invented by aristocratic Western Europeans over local indigenous design traditions?
13:50
And do you really care about sustainability if all you do is teach how to create buildings that barely survive for 50 years?
13:57
Part 4
14:00
Happily, there is good news too. What if I told you there is a renaissance taking place, with a number of schools who do it all differently?
14:08
I travelled to South Bend, Indiana, to visit the Notre Dame School of Architecture. This school is truly special, because at Notre Dame they do teach the architectural design skills that were used to create the places we love. Students are taught the drafting and rendering skills, the understanding of material, the relationship to craft, And many other design skills that one cannot find at regular modernist architecture schools. Employers love to hire these students.
14:33
Around 99 percent directly finds a job at a good firm. Those are numbers other programs can only dream about. Stefanos Polyzoides is the current dean of the architecture school. Well, the school started 125 years ago teaching classical architecture, which was the, the, the major mode at the time, the central mode of all. All education in the United States. And then it followed all the trends, uh, including the post war trend to be teaching in the, in, in a modernist curriculum.
15:02
And, uh, 30 years ago, 32 years to be precise, the university hired Thomas Gordon Smith to develop a different approach to, uh, the teaching of architecture, which was one that was based on the understanding of the past. The time came that Michael Lykoudis, who was a professor here, was elevated into the deanship. He followed up with two very profoundly important initiatives. One of them was to understand classism in, in the range of architectural expression
15:35
from the least formal to the most formal. So that included among other things, the amazing, uh, vernacular traditions of the world. And he also introduced the subject of urbanism, uh, in the school as a very fundamental one, uh, which had to do. With the idea that buildings will not be designed by themselves, uh, but they would be designed in context. When I walk through the studio, I almost can't believe my eyes as I see the work of the students.
16:04
Most of the drawings are so beautifully done, I would frame them and put them on my wall. I also feel a bit sad as I remember the dreams I had as a 19 year old. The education I wanted to have, which I see here now, had been taken from me. But here I am, 14 years later, and it's glorious to see. I mean, look at this. If students can design so beautifully, then it's even worse what we see in our cities.
16:26
I interviewed one of the students to hear about this experience, Andrés Martinez. I think the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture is different for a lot of reasons.
16:37
First and foremost is at this school, we really try to understand and differentiate the difference between background and foreground buildings. And we understand architecture as architecture being a part of a fabric or a network within a city. We study seriously, uh, regional precedence, meaning we take a look at the regional and local architecture of the cities that we're working in. Something you'll note that here at the University of Notre Dame, we don't just
17:06
copy and paste historical precedence. So what does that mean? It means that when we're studying historical architecture or the architecture of the past, we take a dense amount of time to analyze it, to understand it, and to see how the architects of the past have answered various design challenges in their own ways. Once we've come to gather and collect the information that we need, then we move forward with a strategy of design.
17:34
to think and interact with the past but also to address contemporary issues. But Notre Dame is not the only place where these skills are being taught. At the Catholic University of America there is another fully accredited traditional program. This program has a strong focus on model building. It coexists with a modernist program and its students win a lot of student design competitions.
17:57
I also traveled to Kansas to visit Benedictine College in Atchison. Benedictine offers students a similar education, albeit an undergrad program that is not yet fully accredited. I asked for some of the students experiences. Uh, when I arrived here freshman year I didn't really realize, uh, what was happening. There was a certain quality in the studio of all these people working together to make something that I thought had died, you know.
18:23
Uh, so coming here and, and sort of, you know, Starting anew, having really no idea what classical architecture is or sort of, uh, those, those urbanistic principles either, was, uh, certainly shocking. Originally, I studied a whole year of modern architecture in, in Peru.
18:42
So it's been a very interesting experience to kind of forget everything I, I was taught before. Because at the end of that year, I was kind of disencouraged.
18:56
I felt like nothing really made sense from what I was being taught. The things that I was designing were only, didn't really go beyond a functional purpose. And I was, it was just very boring, I guess. It's really important, I think, to the architecture experience to do it by hand. I think with computers there's this disconnect, um, from the human person. And by removing the human person from these buildings that humans are supposed
19:29
to interact with, you're really not, um, doing a service to the people who are interacting with those buildings. But there is more good news. Utah Valley University started a program at their public university, which is very affordable compared to the prestigious Notre Dame. The Miami School of Architecture also offers a track in classical and traditional design. So, in the US, the number of options is growing. How about Europe? Well, unfortunately, there is less available on the Old Continent.
19:57
But there are two options. One is at Kingston University in London, with a master track that teaches classical architecture, led by Jonathan Taylor and Timothy Smith. The second one was started at the NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Students at that school demanded to get traditional architecture schooling, As a result, one of their teachers, Branko Mitrovic, now has a small classical architecture program. There's also a growing number of summer schools, which I will link to in the
20:22
description below, with editions in the UK, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Mexico and Spain to name a few. And more summer schools are underway, including one in the US. Finally, there's part time courses and classes, like from the Classic Planning Academy and the ICAA. In short, it seems like a true renaissance of architecture education is on its way. Part 5. Solutions So, what can universities do to fix their programs? I think it can be summarized to the following.
20:52
Choose for teaching real architectural design skills over fads and reinventing the wheel. Next up, do serious precedent study. Understand buildings deeply instead of taking superficial, abstract inspiration from older works. Offer more than one view on architecture to create a true diversity of ideas. Reward humbleness and servitude to society instead of encouraging an egocentric attitude of building and designer. Focus on true, long term sustainability instead of checking
21:19
boxes for LEED certificates or chasing fashionable gimmicks. And last but not least, show an interest in the question of beauty. This would mean overhauling the education system. But I think a school could start off by offering a minor or a master track, or extra courses during the bachelor's degree. I guarantee that many students will be interested in learning more about traditional architecture, like precedent or hand drawing techniques. Let's move on to the final part of this video. Part 6.
21:46
You, the student. You might be frustrated, angry even, when you've seen how it could be. I was, for sure, when I discovered what education I could have had, but never got the opportunity to do. So, what can you do? Well, the biggest problem is that you're probably still by yourself. That doesn't mean there aren't any others who also think they are alone. So, on my Discord channel, I created a way for you to find like minded students from your faculty.
22:11
Drop a message in one of the channels I created for many countries and states, saying where you study, so others can easily find you. Because alone, you might be weak. But together, you are Legion. Together, you can share your experiences, start a study group to learn what the university doesn't teach you, or you can try to pressure your university to teach more useful architectural design skills, because that's what we need if we want to have more attractive places in our world.
22:37
We need to change our universities. To help you out, I made a page on my website where you can find all sorts of suggestions to achieve change or to self study. Never forget that you are the future, and that means that you are the battlefield. There is more to discover in the world of traditional architecture than can be learned in a million lifetimes. So, I wish you the best of luck and hope you will make many people very happy with your beautiful buildings.
23:01
So, let's see if we can change the world together. If you agree with this video or you like it, help us out by sharing this content with your study friends, your professors, and others who might agree or disagree. Let's at least get a discussion started. Help us by liking and subscribing, a big thank you to our patrons, and don't forget to check out the links in the description. They're there for you.
23:22
In the next video, we take a look at a beautiful new Dutch town that did everything differently. Thank you and till next time!
Here to help you learn
Sign in to keep a private conversation with your course tutor.
Ask me anything about the material…
Sign in to chat