Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

‘Teaching Beyond the Curriculum’ raises the question of the production of the architect. This production begins with our education, through the selection and dissemination of critical projects in relationship to a specific context. Architects, like architecture, should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as the projects we teach and produce. We need to ask ourselves not what kind of architecture we need, but rather what kind of architects we need to foster. In China, architects have historically looked to Western models for urban and building design solutions. Virtually every Western architect has built in China, leaving an imprint on the minds of young Chinese designers, fueled by an overall climate of economic and social optimism. Projects such as CCTV or the Birds Nest are both powerful yet completely inadequate models to address the new and pressing challenges facing the 21st century. As China is poised to become the world’s economic superpower within the next decade, the question of who the next generation of architects will be in China is all the more paramount. We feel that many of the characteristics endogenous to centralized planning offer unique opportunities for a reworking of the profession at multiple scales. The scaling of new technologies, folding architecture into larger infrastructural systems, the countryside as a site for production, relocation housing, and issues of migrant labor are some of the unique and sensitive challenges directly confronting Chinese architects today. The figure of the Chinese architect is becoming a global one. This new generation will hold enormous influence and will inevitably help to shape the future of the built environment both at home and abroad. The question is not how we have traditionally trained architects in the past, but how can we begin to confront many of the issues facing the twenty-first century through architectural pedagogy. China offers an excellent context within which to address this question.