Today we are talking about how different universities approach the education of an architect. How do you see your graduates?
The banner of our school says that we educate sensitive, thinking and responsible architects. What does it mean?
Sensitivity means the architect's ability to see and feel the world in its entirety and in detail, with an open mind and from a certain ethical standpoint. Thinking is a necessary property of any humanist; it means being a reflexive person, reflecting and critically evaluating everything that becomes the subject of attention. Such a critical position, alas, is not very common for our colleagues today. But these are important, key processes for architects, closely related to some poetic understanding of reality. An architect must think not only in terms of economics, sociology and politics, but in terms of poetry, as emotionally and aesthetically valuable content of the surrounding world. It is this reflective type of architect that, it seems to me, is extremely in demand today - in our profession it is necessary to constantly rethink what is happening in today's world - these are future projects or projects of the future.
In recent years, all the themes of my studio begin with the word "rethinking" - typology, building, materiality. We turn to rethinking both actual reality and the fundamental foundations of architecture and human existence. This year's theme, for example, will be "Rethinking Gravity."
Finally, a responsible architect is one who, on the basis of his thoughts, interacts with the world around him with full responsibility. You see, any architectural realization is a social, political fact, but, above all, cultural. And responsibility to culture, in the broadest sense of the word, for an architect should be no less significant than to an individual client or group.
How is all this reflected in your program? After all, you probably do not have the subject of "responsibility"
You are right, but our program is structured differently from the program of other universities. We have a common base, fundamental education, but the subject of design is different every year. And, accepting the annual brief - the task for the studio - we build our classes, including, taking into account all the listed theses.
In the first year of study, for example, a lot of attention is paid just to sensitivity and attentiveness, but, I repeat, this does not exclude a serious program related to the history and theory of architecture, where from the first year students solve rather complex problems. As for responsibility, this is a cross-cutting theme of our entire education.
When we meet with professors from other universities, they generally talk about the same thing - at least about responsibility. What's the Difference?
Maybe it's because we understand responsibility a little differently. For what and to whom is the architect responsible? It seems to me that this is a key issue for the profession. For the customer's money? In front of a future consumer? Before God? Space? History? These measures of responsibility and setting oneself in one structure or another determine the behavior of the architect. If we simplify the subject of responsibility in architecture to security conditions, we will greatly impoverish its tasks. The issues of ensuring the sustainability of a building do not require architectural education, this is a purely technical issue. Another thing is responsibility to the world, history, culture. So, we prepare our students for just such a responsibility.
Who, in this case, becomes, say, the beneficiary of the specialists that your school graduates? Society?
Formally, yes. But in the long term, it is unknown. Who is the Beneficiary of St. Peter's Basilica? Dad, Catholic Church? No, all of humanity. There are such marks in the value system that, in principle, cannot be measured. This does not mean that we abandon modest momentary tasks and force students to “think with masterpieces”. But we think of architecture as a universal core of material culture, and we always remember about a certain, let's call it so, high mission of architecture, which runs through the entire history of mankind.
From the founders of the architectural bureau and developers, we often hear that young professionals are not ready to work in market conditions. This is true?
What are market conditions? If these are the conditions that have developed in recent years and are dictated by the construction market, then I am very skeptical about them. Simply because I see the results of this activity every day. Maybe our students will not be able to work in such a market, although, I will note in parentheses, 95% of our graduates successfully work in their specialty. Or maybe they will create some other system, which will be guided by a high cultural demand? What we see today is that large developers are creating a market that fills cities with a huge number of, to put it mildly, dubious architecture. Battalions have been raised, whole divisions of architects working for this market. The results are evident.
In no sphere can one obey the market blindly, and a critical attitude towards it is just one of the prerequisites for any creativity, including architecture. In general, you need to look openly - does this market really make the world a better place? Still, architects work for the common good, and not for someone's personal enrichment and endless development of the globe.
The market today is much more predatory than it used to be. There has never been a development in the modern sense in history. What was “big construction” a hundred years ago? This is when someone built two tenement houses. But today the scale is completely different, both the objects themselves and the relationship between different agents of this market. That is why the question is posed in such a way that the architect must meet some kind of market conditions. What does this mean in practice? To undertake anything, without hesitation, without having your own guidelines, working only on conditions proposed by someone. Further, of course - to work overtime, it is generally obligatory, because the deadlines are inconceivable and you do not have time for anything. Work for little money, otherwise you simply won't receive the order. We see the results of such a market all over the country, and they are frightening. And we see that it is only in the confrontation with the market that something really valuable appears.
But the inability to “be in the market” also means such important skills as the inability to present a project or calculate its economics
You see, I do not know of a single school in the world from which comes what is called a "ready architect". This is impossible, at least because architecture is a very complex history that requires a long accumulation of practical skills and experience.
Our task is to produce people who think in architecture, who are ready to study architecture all their lives. Yes, they do not know all the normative wisdom. But they are easy to learn. What is difficult to learn is to be human in architecture. And this is the only thing that we can and should teach the best. If the necessary technical knowledge is then superimposed on this foundation, then within this architecture-centered model of consciousness, they are correctly packaged. In contrast to the opposite - you can have all the technical skills, know all methods of calculating estimates, but never become a humanist. The result, I repeat, is obvious. In general, we have too little discussion of the humanistic problems of architecture, and this is necessary. Nevertheless, conversations about a comfortable environment seem to me personally more like advertising slogans than real approaches to understanding the meaning of human existence.
Well, as for other aspects, in particular, presentations, we teach this, as few people do, and teach from the first days. We have a special course called "Professional Communications", which covers all forms of representation of an architect and architecture, the ability to behave like an architect with a client, authority, colleague, builder. Our students make presentations from the first year, and it is the public presentation that is the main form of interaction with the student. This is a serious difference between our methodology, built on presentation and criticism, which educates both communication skills and the form of presentation of project material. By the way, as critics for discussing projects, we invite not only architects, but writers, artists, journalists, businessmen.
Then how do you choose students?
We even have such a list of whom we are waiting for - there are about ten positions. Including talented, energetic, motivated, hardworking, enthusiastic, independent, cheerful, etc.
But seriously, first of all, we are waiting for people who know why they come here and eagerly want to study. Of course, it must also be people who are certainly capable of this activity. After all, we do not have entrance exams, we do not accept anyone based on pictures and blind marks. For us, the most important thing is to talk with a student face to face - this is the only way to understand what is behind his soul, whether he is our person. Of course, it is very difficult to expect a deep understanding of the world at the age of 17-18, but when you see a person who is really burning, excited, interested, it is easy to single out such a person. Yes, he still knows a little, but he is interested in everything, he is ready to study, and we know that he will be a good student. By the way, we have a very tough selection - the school is very small, in all five courses there are no more than 150-160 students. We simply cannot afford to have bad students, so this choice is always very difficult and responsible.
Now, after all, those who were born in the early 2000s are already applying to you, how do they differ? Is there a portrait of a modern student?
Yes, and these are completely different students. Now we are finally dealing with millennials, people who have been in the computer since infancy, and this is more and more noticeable in our environment. So, we try very hard for our students to have the skill not only of playing games on the computer, but the habit and need for reading paper books and working with their hands. In general, it seems to me that the topic of architectural education is especially acute today against the background of rampant computerization. For example, any person with knowledge of some programs and with Internet access may well be engaged in "architecture" in the modern sense - that is, prepare documentation for construction. But is he an architect? All this significantly complicates the positioning of the profession in the world, posing completely new tasks for education. We focus on them, considering not technical skills, but humanitarian knowledge and practice as the most important. Only on this basis can architecture be preserved as a cultural activity that has universal human meaning. *** Material provided by the Open City conference press service.
The Open City conference will take place in Moscow on September 27-28. The program of the event: workshops from leading architectural bureaus, sessions on topical issues of Russian architectural education, a thematic exhibition, Portfolio Review - presentation of student portfolios to leading architects and developers in Moscow - and much more.
