Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, head of the Media and Modernity program at Princeton University and author of several books on the relationship between architecture and different types of media, came to Moscow to deliver a lecture on Architecture and Radical Pedagogy at Strelka Institute. Archi.ru met with her before the lecture to talk about what provokes experiments in architectural education and what does the media have to do with it.
Archi.ru:
- Today you are giving a lecture at Strelka about experimental pedagogy. What do you mean by experiment?
Beatrice Colomina:
- In the lecture, I will touch on two aspects. The first is my own teaching practice, which is built on collaboration with students and interactivity, and thus has a horizontal, non-hierarchical character compared to traditional teaching methods. The second aspect is, in fact, the subject of our research with students on experiments in pedagogy in the post-war years, from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. At some point, I realized that a lot of research work was done on the architectural schools of the earlier period - the avant-garde era (Bauhaus, etc.) and very little study of the post-war period. So I started working with students, initially studying such obvious stories as the Ulm School of Design in Germany, the Architectural Association School in London (AA), Cooper Union and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. Gradually, we found out that the field of research is much broader. Even then, it was a global phenomenon: business was not limited to European and North American schools, there were already experimental schools in Latin America, India or New Zealand. This is a much more complex set of experiments that emerges in the postwar years, especially in the 60s and 70s. People are beginning to wonder: what is architecture? and this is connected with the political revolutions of that period, I mean not only the May 1968 events in France, but also the revolution in Chile (1970-73), student riots in Mexico City (October 1968), in Berkeley (1964-65), at Yale University (1970) and in other universities in the United States. Protests and criticism of political institutions are very closely intertwined with the situation in the field of education. For example, in Paris, architecture students not only actively participate in street protests, but also criticize what they are taught. They say that the academic system of the École de Beaux Arts is completely untenable and has nothing to do with the current political and economic situation. The same thing happens in Barcelona, in many cities in Italy. There is a total rethinking of what is architecture, what matters to it, and what does not. The old education system is under attack - not only the École de beauz-ar, but also the paradigm of the exclusivity of the architect and his work, as opposed to understanding the conditions in which he works.
During this period, architects began to worry about new topics. For example, the topic of the environment is becoming very prominent in the UK, in Italy (although in France, for example, it is not so important). This is reflected in the content of architecture magazines. For example, Domus magazine, which used to put photos of famous architects on the cover, put there an image of the planet Earth with the words "Help". The realization came that the planet's resources are limited. New, recyclable materials are being investigated. They are experimenting with a typology that is very relevant today - emergency architecture, for internally displaced people. This is what starts to interest students, not big names or buildings. So this time is both interesting to study and very in tune with the present day. It turns out that we were seriously thinking about such important things at that time. In the 70s, an energy crisis occurs, and the architects suddenly came to their senses and began to think about how much energy is spent on the construction of one building, etc. And then the crisis ended, and all these environmental topics were again forgotten by the architectural workshop for more than 30 years. Now we are preoccupied with exactly the same problems, and, studying the experience of predecessors, we see that they have really made great headway in this topic. Here is a short story about our joint research with students, which, by the way, we presented at the Venice Biennale of Architecture this year.
Your project received a special prize from the jury of the Biennale. How did the public receive the exhibition?
- Very good! There were always people in our pavilion. Three days after the opening of the Biennale, we ran out of all booklets. But, by the way, printed materials are not particularly needed:
all materials are posted on the Internet… Young guys from Barcelona developed a special online platform for our project, and visitors could read all the information on their tablet, we have provided this opportunity in the exposition. For example, you see a stand about a school that you are interested in, point your tablet at it, and using the application you can watch a video about it, video lectures, and some additional materials.
Why did you limit the study period to the 1970s?
- The experiments are over. Most schools have continued to practice the same since then. For example, AA even then created a new system with units and a "Chinese menu" of disciplines that you can choose yourself instead of the compulsory curriculum. Such a system operates today in all architecture schools in the United States. In the late 60s and 70s, its introduction met with great resistance, but today it has become the norm.
Do I understand correctly that changes in architectural education occur under the influence of external events - revolutions, economic crises, and in itself it is conservative? In your project, for sure there was no place for the Soviet Union of that era, or am I mistaken?
- In fact, at Princeton we have a graduate student from Russia, Masha Panteleeva, so she told about a very interesting example - the NER group, which Giancarlo de Carlo invited to participate in the Triennial in Milan. To be honest, I still can't imagine how this invitation could ever be possible. This story is on display, and many visitors were very interested in it. Just imagine: young architects from Moscow, almost children, with curls - and they are already at the triennial together with ArchiGram and Peter and Alison Smithsons [it was the famous 1968 triennial - approx. ed.]. In itself, the fact that Italy knew about the existence of this group of young people in the USSR seems extraordinary! Communication, despite the differences in the political system, existed [probably, de Carlo learned about the NER during his visit to Moscow under the auspices of the Italian Embassy - approx. ed.]. But you are right when you say that education is one of the channels through which people express their displeasure with the system in times of political turmoil. Only at these moments do they say: something has to change. For example, after the 2008 crisis, many universities began to say that the time had come to rethink the attitude towards big architects and "iconic" buildings. It's time to turn our attention to colossal environmental problems instead.
Is there really no place today for experimentation in architectural education?
- In general, there are not so many new experimental systems in the world as there were in the 60s and 70s (for example, your Strelka is quite an interesting experiment). I repeat, for the most part, they are reproduced. Nevertheless, it seems to me that thanks to the revolutionary changes in the means of communication that have been taking place over the past 15 years, a new stage of experimental education is brewing. We exist in the context of a more horizontal culture, the inherent attributes of which are sharing and collective creation of content, take, for example, Wikipedia. The concept of authority as the owner and translator of the only truth has become untenable: the new culture is wary of this model. Modern young people willingly share information and knowledge with each other, are engaged in joint creativity. I also build my own teaching practice on collaboration, bringing people of different ages and knowledge levels together to work on a common project. We are constantly in dialogue, so sometimes no one can even say to whom this or that idea belongs. I think this is more in line with our culture. For experiments in education, a political revolution does not necessarily have to happen, a technological and communication one is enough.
Is there, in your opinion, a gap between the new generation of architects, who are used to this new, horizontal model of working with information and cooperation, and the client - investors, representatives of big business? Are they still very conservative and cautious, or are they ready for new ideas and models of interaction?
- I think we are ready. There are economists, new thinkers, who represent a whole new world. Not so long ago I was in Berlin for a lecture by the economist and social philosopher Jeremy Rifkin. By the way, he is an advisor to Angela Merkel and the structures of the European Union. In his book "The Third Industrial Revolution" (2011, Russian edition, 2014), he says that a new economic system is being formed, which implies tremendous changes in production and in the way of communication. During the First Industrial Revolution, they began to deliver goods by train and transmit information by radio. Today we are in a similar situation - with radically new communication methods and new forms of energy. The idea that we can still rely on oil is a bit crazy, because we know that the reserves of this resource are limited. Germany is at the forefront of the world's experiments with new energy sources, with all these solar panels, etc.
Rifkin talks about how new trends in human cooperation are emerging as suburbanites unite in communities that use alternative energy sources. These "energy pools" are growing stronger and becoming such a significant phenomenon that energy companies are trying to aggregate the energy they generate. Business understands that something must change in the economy. He himself is the source of new theories, because it is obvious that he cannot survive with the old approach to economics. Automotive concerns such as BMW are investing heavily in research institutes, think tanks, that are thinking about an alternative to the traditional car. Carmakers understand that the future, quite possibly, lies not with cars, but with something else, and they need to know what the transport will be like in the city of the future. They will have to change and want to be ready for it.
Rifkin is confident that we are going through the last stages of capitalism as we know it, and will soon witness the formation of a new system. For example, he talked about the culture of collective use of various things, for example, a car. Many people do not want to own a car - by the way, I belong to them. Some people of the older generation tremendously value their cars, associate themselves with them. Few people behave this way these days, especially in places like New York or Los Angeles. In New York, more and more people use the services of Uber: when they need to go somewhere, they simply press a button on their smartphone and get a car with a chauffeur for their use for a while. The number of private cars is thus decreasing. Shared use has even extended to children's toys. Rifkin gives an example. Usually, when giving a child a new toy, parents gradually teach him the first lessons of capitalism: here it is, this is your new toy, you are now its owner, it is yours, not your sister's or brother's, you have to take care of it. And now there are many cooperatives, for example, in Brooklyn, where you can “rent” a toy for 3 days: then they disinfect it and let other children play. Toys do not accumulate in the house, children are constantly playing with different toys, everyone is happy. Rifkin says that these are the beginnings of the very Third Industrial Revolution.
How does this new model apply to architecture that is inherently non-mobile?
- This is an interesting question. I think it might affect something like a second home or a vacation home. Now it is still a very status thing, but if you think about it - how often does a person use it? Not very often. Therefore, perhaps, when entering a new culture, a person will be somewhat less attached to things, it will be easier for him to change houses where he spends the summer or weekends. Maybe he will change houses with one click.
Will this not enter into a cardinal contradiction with the very nature of man - his attachment to the past, to memories?
- I also thought it was impossible, but I saw many examples of young people losing interest in owning property, in self-identification with property, in the possession of what advertisements impose on them. After all, nobody advertises Ubercar - unlike its own Alfa Romeo. Maybe if people are less burdened with things, they will be able to live easier, more mobile. I don't have a lot of things myself, I travel quite a lot. But what really bothers me and my husband [architecture researcher and educator Mark Wigley, Mark Wigley] - these are books, thousands of books - we are both scientists, and therefore they accumulate. As soon as I think about moving, I'm doing badly.
Which of the modern architects or architectural schools adhere to such views?
- Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena: He deals with the theme of construction using the minimum amount of resources. Or Shigeru Ban, just a Pritzker Prize winner, devotes a lot of attention to architecture for emergencies. So thinking changes. Informal cities - favelas and spontaneous cities in Latin America - are becoming an important topic for study. Many architects work with recyclable materials, many think about the amount of space required to construct a building.
Tell us how the focus of your attention was shifted from the media, whose role in architecture you have been studying for a long time, to education?
- I still study media. Education from this point of view is also interesting. Firstly, this project is just one of many that I have done in collaboration with students. The previous one - Clip / Stamp / Fold - was devoted to the so-called "small magazines" of the 1960s and 70s. This exhibition about more than a hundred architectural magazines from different countries has already visited 12 cities - Kassel as part of Documenta, New York, Montreal, London, Oslo, Barcelona, Santiago de Chile, etc. And secondly, the topic education has a lot to do with media. All schools have their own publications. London AA would not be what it is without student publications.
Or another example - Buckminster Fuller, who completely changed education in the United States, had a presentiment of today's idea of "university on the Internet." He believed that teaching should be decentralized and claimed to be teaching in 55 schools because he did attend lectures - he created a kind of network of schools that he traveled and taught. Bucky didn't believe in only one place and teaching a limited number of people. He believed that the best teacher, in today's language, would be teaching online to people anywhere in the world. In all the experiments that we consider, the means of communication always play an important role. I'm a media freak.
Do you know of cases when the architect himself reacts to the media? Read a critic's column in a newspaper or an architecture magazine, for example, and change something in your work? Is there, shall we say, backlash to end-user criticism or feedback?
- It seems to me that all architects react to what they read about. When Gideon wrote about "space / time" in architectural theory, all architects began to think in these terms. There is always a dialogue with the press, with criticism, there is always a conversation. I really like Peter Smithson's idea that the history of architecture is not the history of buildings, but the history of conversation. This is a conversation between architects and each other, and a conversation between architects and a customer, engineer, politician, critic.
Many times I myself saw Rem Koolhaas meeting with New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp in a bar near my house and talking to him for a long time when he came to New York. Then, when Herbert was replaced by Nikolai Urusov (Nicolai Ouroussoff), Rem immediately became friends with him, and they had long conversations. It's really interesting for architects to know what critics think. Rem is especially sensitive in this sense, because he himself was at first a journalist, like his father, by the way. But he's not the only one. Liz Diller from Diller Scofidio + Renfro also always talked with Mouchamp, he constantly hung out in their workshop. Stephen Hall often called Kenneth Frampton to talk about this and that. So this is an ongoing dialogue. And this is also very important and interesting for critics, this is how they learn about what is happening, what interests architects. It is a two-way street.
Is the topic of education closed for you?
- I think that this project is almost completed, although people still continue to send me more and more stories that we have lost sight of. We have have a website, on which all our "examples" are laid out, and the site is convenient because it can be endlessly supplemented. Our previous Clip / Stamp / Fold project is also constantly updated - after each exhibition on a new continent. For example, in Latin America, we were told about architecture magazines that we had no idea about, and we added them to the exhibition. The project on radical pedagogy has been going on for 3-4 years, it will exist in the active phase for another year, and then the question of publishing a book will arise. Should I publish it? We released a book on the Clip / Stamp / Fold exhibition, and then it turned out that there is something to supplement it with.
Maybe we should stop publishing books and completely go online?
- Exactly. Perhaps we will.
