Contemporary Architecture:
Buildings, Landscapes, Cities, Architecture as Discourse
Discourse
1. Verbal interchange of ideas; especially conversation
2. Formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a
subject
3. A mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in
language
Premodern, modern, postmodern, late modern, contemporary
Terms vary by field of study
Sliding values
History of the present
Not a history of the past in terms of the present
History of how things got to be how they are today
History of how things did not have to be the way they are today
History looks to the future as much as it does to the past
Histories of the Present: Architectural Education
Design studio
Large space
Students work together
Supervised
Increasingly digitalized
Process rituals – disciplinary techniques
Desk-crit
Interact one-on-one with your instructor
Pin-up
Presenting work informally
Review (formally called ‗jury‘)
Work presented to critics
École des Beaux-Arts (1793 – 1968)
Preceeded by the royal academy in the 17 thcentury
Vitruvian ideals are practiced
Lectures open to the public
Theoretical knowledge rather than construction
More closely aligned with the fine arts
Offered lectures on math, history, etc
Provided a museum of antique architecture
Practiced the idea that artistic education started with copying old
examples
Ateliers as workplaces
Self-designed learning setup Privately held studio spaces
Had to approach a teacher or architecture to be their mentors
Organized competitions
Took around 15 years to complete the program
Hierarchical system
Everyone started at the bottom
Grand prix
Top of the hierarchical chain
Only one student achieved it every year
Prize was to study the antiquity in Rome
Upon returning, they become state architect
Competitions were a way of working your way up
Success of design was judged by the accuracy and precision of
copying something
The whole matters most
No women
Charette
Carriage, chariot, cart, wagon
A period of intense (group) work, typically undertaken in order to
meet a deadline
Students aimed to meet deadlines
Judged by a panel of jury
Closed-jury system
Success was judged by how closely the final product
stayed to the original plan
Diplomas were not awarded until later on
Poché
The method or result of representing the solid part of a building (as
a wall, etc.) by a darkened area on an architectural plan
Parti
Basic scheme of special arrangement
École Polytechnique (1794 – present)
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