Professor Peter Russell Dipl.-Ing. Architect, M.Arch B.E.D.S. 
Dean Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University

As we witnessed the images and reports of the 13th of May this year, we were shocked, awed and dumbfounded at the thought that a complete faculty of architecture could be eradicated in such a pyrotechnical event. Thankfully, the losses of rooms and the fiery consummation of knowledge were the limit of the fire’s wrath. No one was injured and the faculty continues to function. Indeed: the first meetings to organise temporary spaces started before the fire was even under control. Kudos are due to the faculty management.

Now, to rebuild, the faculty is faced with an enormous challenge. The rebuilding of the faculty will entail assessing what is needed, what is important, what is nice to have and what can the faculty do without. Furthermore, the ways of sorting, arranging, managing and interlinking these facilities will influence the final design. As well, the way the faculty functions will affect the shape of the space (and vice versa). Actually, the converse holds more weight. The shape of the new building(s) will affect the faculty and its functions and in essence, the shape of the education.

“O for such a chance” would many an educator cry. “To be rid of the deadweight and on with the new”. Statements such as these lie just behind the lips of many colleagues in Europe. I doubt any would dare risk a conflagration in order to renew the faculty’s ways and means. Yet many will be jealous of the chance laid at the doorstep (if one has survived) of the Bouwkunde faculty in Delft. The rebuilding of the faculty’s spaces entails asking, “How do we want to teach?” As such, the “architectural competition” will also become a pedagogical and didactical competition as to how best to educate the coming generations of architects. In opposition to this kind of “idea competition” in the past, the architects in Delft have the real chance to turn these ideas into reality. For other educators of architecture in Europe, this is, at the least, incredibly annoying, the fire notwithstanding.

Several factors will influence the dialogue in the next months as to how best to rebuild the faculty. Firstly, the education of architects in Europe is, for the most part, homogeneous. As Pfammatter described in “The Making of the Modern Architect and Engineer”, the pedagogical pedigree of European architectural education can be traced to the École Polytechnique at the time of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand. His program was later exported (or imported, depending on who you ask) to most other European countries. Indeed, if one looks at the curriculum developed by Durand and compares it to the new Bologna-Process Bachelor programs, little has changed in the content or the weighting of fields in architectural education in the past 200 years. This is, perhaps, a positive signal for our metier. An unchanging pedagogy reinforces tradition and in a field where our products survive generations, this could be considered to be positive for the field of architecture, positive for our students and positive for their clients.

However, suppose that the traditions we point to, as proof of the relevance of this education, exist only because each new generation of architects has been conditioned to think this way. Through this kind of mechanism (or simply put: brainwashing), the culture of architectural thought (so called: designerly thinking) perpetuates itself, independent of the market or cultural forces at play. The system exists then to perpetuate the system. Perhaps, we as architectural educators are way off the mark. Perhaps tradition has suckered us all into discourse that is, outside the university, considered as unconnected, irrelevant, arrogant, and above all, useless.

In asking what shape or form the new faculty of architecture should take, we really need to ask first, “What role does the faculty play in the society?” If we know (or can decide) this question, then we know what the mission of the faculty will have. At this point, we can debate which strategies or tactics best achieve the goals of the faculty. These of course, will have widely differing programs and architectural answers to spatial requirements. But the main task lies earlier in the conceptional design. First design the faculty, and then design their building(s).

A Codicil: 
A layman might say, “Healer, heal thyself”.

We architects and educators of architects are “oh so smart” that we might well be seduced by such a statement. “Of course! Architects know best how to teach architects. We’ve all been there and we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years! Make it like before, only bigger (and) or better.” This argument must be avoided at all costs. Otherwise we will perpetuate the liturgy of architectural education and, if the readers haven’t noticed yet, 1/12 of this century is already gone!

A characteristic of successful design is interdisciplinary collaboration. We need educators from other fields, architects from other cultures, pedagogues from other countries and input from other parts of the community. Let the cross-pollination of ideas help us to break out of a 200-year tradition. Maybe this should not only be wished for – maybe this should be required.

Aachen, September 1, 2008