After the solemn part, a discussion began on the topic "What and how to teach an architect in a changing world", in which the rector of MARSH Evgeny Ass, the director of the School Nikita Tokarev, professor of London Metropolitan University Robert Mull, critic and publicist Vladimir Paperny, curator Victor Misiano, critic Sergey Sitar, architect Anton Mosin. The conversation was moderated by Aleksey Muratov, editor-in-chief of Project Russia magazine.
This topic was chosen for a reason, because MARSH is positioned, first of all, as an educational institution in which students can get an education that is qualitatively different from what is given at the Moscow Architectural Institute and at the architectural faculties of other Russian universities. The discussion began with the question of who, in fact, is an architect. Someone who has a degree in architecture education or someone who knows how to create spatial systems, is able to organize the space for human life? And how should the quality of his work be assessed?
Alexey Muratov quoted the famous Dutch architect and teacher of architecture Keyes Christians: “Many consider the architect a“Renaissance man”, while in reality he constantly and sorely lacks knowledge. As a tourist, traveling according to the technical assignments of his customers, he accumulates enough information to simulate competence and in no way give out the superficiality of his knowledge. Usually his "theories" are meaningful short statements that eventually become commonplace: "form follows function", "less is more", "less is bore", "fuck context", "fuck building". Because of his need to discuss and argue, the architect is usually doomed to teach, and his inadequate theories are often supported by young student audiences. An architect teaches in order to gather knowledge, not to disseminate it. " This quote caused laughter both among the audience and among the speakers, but if we discard the sarcasm, then we must admit that there is a certain amount of truth in it. Oskar Mamleev, professor at Moscow Architectural Institute, in turn, believes that an architect should possess the sum of knowledge, both technical and ethical, social, and only a person who has received a comprehensive, elite education can perform his work. An architect can only be one who is able to work at the intersection of science and art.
Undoubtedly, the profession of an architect also has a craft component - for example, the ability to manipulate space, but an artisan from an architect is distinguished by two key concepts: the concept of dialogue, interaction with the context and society, and the concept of responsibility - to the customer, society, norms. That is why most of the participants in the discussion agreed on the main thing: concepts such as “co-building” and “welfare” will always be relevant, and the point of the school is to provide students with a set of unchanging skills and the ability to see the need for change. Thus, academician Konstantin Scriabin, a genetic engineer, who joined the discussion, raised the question outside the narrow professional channel, asking whether the massive changes in technology and perception of the world really affect architecture. The academician himself remarkably answered his question with an example from genetics: despite the development of this area, no one creates new organisms, since the research goals are different and they are always aimed at meeting the real needs of society.
Narine Tyutcheva, relying on her experience as a teacher, said that the main task of the teacher is to launch a mechanism that will allow the student to acquire the necessary knowledge himself in the future. At the Moscow Architectural Institute, the student is not taught, but trained to find a solution in a limited range of problems, while a real architect must know everything about the world, well, or almost everything, and it is impossible to teach everything in five, six, or ten years. Therefore, students, first of all, need to be taught to learn. This is what the founders and teachers of MARSH will strive for.
In fact, the new school will be a continuous creative and methodological experiment aimed at finding a worthy response to the requirements of a constantly changing world. The architectural education that exists at the moment in the country has a number of disadvantages. The substantive and methodological gap with reality, a catastrophic lack of knowledge in the field of current structures and technologies, the gap between theory and professional activity - these and other gaps will try to fill the MARSH.
Evgeny Ass emphasized that MARSH is being integrated into the educational cluster that is being formed in ArtPlay on the basis of the British Higher School of Design, and this will allow it to be not a narrow professional educational institution, but an active general cultural institution. One of the tasks is purposeful integration into the world educational process, holding international workshops and master classes. By the way, the first public action has already been planned - the opening of the School pavilion in the Muzeon park. The pavilion will be designed by Igor Chirkin, the winner of the competition held jointly with Project Russia magazine. The event will take place within the framework of "Arch of Moscow" -2012. Towards its main goal - the upbringing of a thinking and feeling architect, immersed in the real problems of modern life - the new educational institution will begin to move this autumn.
