Archcouncil

A New Professional for a New City

03 November 2016

Yury Grigoryan, Eugene Asse, Sergey Kuznetsov, Aleksey Novikov and Oleg Alekseev talking about things which have to be changed in the architectural education. The issue was discussed during the session “New professional for the new city” of the conference “Open city”.

Sergey Kuznetsov, the Chief Architect of Moscow: “It is beyond argument that architectural education needs being updated and adjusted to the challenges of the time, because science and profession are changing so rapidly and it is absolutely impossible to learn at first and then work. These two stages became inseparable part of each other. You can only study all the time.”

1. In the modern educational system school should be focused rather on student than on teacher

In the words of Sergey Kuznetsov, communication turns to be the most important language of the architecture. Information itself stopped being a problem: it is of more importance to teach how to filter information than just put it into students’ heads.

The educational environment itself requires radical reappraisal, thinks Eugene Asse, founder and dean of Architecture School MARCH. This environment should be rested upon cooperation of student and teacher, “and it surely shouldn’t bring this ratio up to 1/12, as it is suggested by new programmes”.

Architectural education is not a training for office work

Concept, where student is deemed as a private conscript and teacher as an officer, has become obsolete. Student should be deemed as an equal partner in education.

Only such type of environment where contest between teachers and students appears, will give opportunity for deep transformation of the profession and inclusion of young architects in the processes of practical activities.

Education must be an enjoyment

“Of course architecture is not only a discipline, but also an inspiration, and task of the institute is to inspire people”, — Yury Grigoryan, Head of Architectural Bureau “Project Meganom”.

2. Architectural school today cannot suggest any stable knowledge

In the words of Eugene Asse, changes in the world and in the profession are so rapid and fundamental that we can not keep the track of everything. Modern architecture converts from hard core of knowledge into floating and flexible blend of skills and abilities, and one should be responsive and adapt himself to the rapidly changing social and political transformations of the modern world.

To the end of the 20th century architecture has exhausted all available tools and can not teach the desired knowledge

“I suppose that today’s school can serve only as a tool of giving students skills and abilities. It can be a mechanism of transfer and broadcasting of certain system of values”, — Eugene Asse.

3. Lack of education in humanities results in lack of critical thinking

Architects are unable to evaluate things happening in the world around them, and, as a result, there appears some type of professional hermetic sealing, Yury Grigoryan considers. People have no idea who architects are, and architects in their turn don’t know what is happening in the society as they are focused on work with form and it cuts them off from reality.

Drawing of heads deprives us of the opportunity to get deeper knowledge in humanities

Today we see architecture vastly as a political activity and we can not just turn away from this challenge in school, notes Eugene Asse.

The student does not know social, political, or cultural reality. He needs to be immersed in the modern philosophy, culture, and art. Student must navigate in the contemporary architectural culture, be immersed in its conceptual fundamentals, into comprehension of what he attempts to imitate.

Students need to be integrated in the scientific and engineering realities because they are constantly changing.

One cannot become an architect without reading all the major books

You should keep in mind that the addressee of the architecture is not always people and city, it as an art with its own goal, and the city is merely a customer of this architecture.

4. Education needs to remain one stop ahead of the present day

Modern school needs to comprehend reality as a thing which predetermines tomorrow’s agenda. Architects must be highly sensitive and foresee images of the future.

Architecture always acts in a longer run, but it is necessary to assess the future in the categories, which are currently on the agenda, and which we are able and have to predict.

In order to connect students with the reality, the majority of teachers in school should be represented by acting architects, both Russian and Western.

We need to overcome disastrous isolation of Russian education from the global process

The curriculum can not stay the same year after year. It is important to shift student from designing separate objects to problem solving. Student must know how to detect it and analyze, and that is why research basis is needed.

Today we see education as a continuous process of training and self-cultivation, understanding that state-of-the-art technology and mobility take this process to the new level — Yury Grigoryan.


Images: Vasiliy Bulanov

 

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