VIRTUAL New Schools of Thought

Abstract

In her short essay “The Crisis of Education,” Hannah Arendt frames crisis as offering the potential for radical questioning or critique—one pivotal enough to shift ground or thinking, as a means of learning. Building on this, the paper explores a crisis of (in or for) architecture today and what this might mean for architectural education, and turns more specifically, to action—the act of discussion, debate, and deliberation in common—to ask reflexively, where exactly is “architecture’s voice” and how it is heard today? Interrogating what more can possibly be said, as architectural practitioners, teachers, and occupiers, to whom, and how “architecture’s voice” can be more critical (as both critique and as a catalyst) for agency and action. If for Arendt the potential for change emerges out of politics, through action, in the ‘space of appearance’ of the public domain—a place of mutual participation and collectively—then the crux of this paper focuses on the public – thing, space, place – of architecture’s agency for thinking, making and critiquing, from the office to the classroom, and into streets. Drawing on the work of Arendt, and through readings by architectural critic, Kenneth Frampton, and political theorist, Bonnie Hoing, the paper creates a crisis of thought, in and of itself, starting with my own, around how we might concern ourselves with publicness in the discipline and what our responsibility might be in for nurturing critical thinking and action.