Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America

by Joan Ockman (Editor)

The first comprehensive history of architecture education in North America, offering a chronological overview and a topical lexicon. Rooted in the British apprenticeship system, the French Beaux-Arts, and the German polytechnical schools, architecture education in North America has had a unique history spanning almost three hundred years. Although architects in the United States and Canada began to identify themselves as professionals by the late eighteenth century, it was not until nearly a century later that North American universities began to offer formal architectural training; the first program was established at MIT in 1865. Today most architects receive their training within an academic setting that draws on the humanities, fine arts, applied science, and public service for its philosophy and methodology. This book, published in conjunction with the centennial of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), provides the first comprehensive history of North American architecture education. Architecture School opens with six chronological essays, each devoted to a major period of before 1860; 1860–1920; 1920–1940; 1940–1968; 1968–1990; and 1990 to the present. This overview is followed by a “lexicon” containing shorter articles on more than two dozen topics that have figured centrally in archictecture education's history, from competitions and design pedagogy to research, structures, studio culture, and travel.

Genres: Architecture

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as interesting really as the history of architectural education in Europe—from military engineers in Italy to the French innovations of the nineteenth century and the German and Russian moderns of the twentieth—this book is still very worthwhile for architects and architectural historians I feel because it provides a much-needed understanding of the history of the profession. Architecture, like the professions of medicine and law, is based very strongly in its pedagogical ideals and how its students obtain their education. As I studied architecture and architectural history at SCAD and saw that institution go from the five-year B.Arch model of tradition to a new model of a five-year M.Arch where the student enters as a freshman, completes an undergrad degree in passing, and then graduates with the masters, it's obvious that educators are still trying to figure out the very best way of educating future architects. This book is something I feel anyone involved in architecture should at least take a look at, because it outlines a lot of what never has been written down before and we only know via our own experiences as students.