Debate on the papers of Session 3 339
Jorge Sousa Santos, Lisbon, Porugal
I would like to make a comment on what Neal Leach said. I do not know if you were
at this double session this afternoon, but I think that you would see enormous dif-
ferences between architectural discourses. I think that you are referring to a kind of
universal statement that is very precise. It is the Anglo-Saxon way of teaching that
connects in itself in this kind of cyclical movement. So I do not think that universali-
sation of architecture is really happening. You can see an immense fracture between
the production of architecture in different countries, and we saw this today.
Neil Leach, London, United Kingdom
I do not know about Anglo-Saxon architecture teaching, to be honest, because I have
not taught an English person for four years. At the AA there was no one English in the
class that I was teaching. And likewise at SCI-Arch, and they were not just American,
they were from all over the world. In Dessau, we have 60 people in the Master’s course
from 40 different countries, and it is very difficult to talk about “discrete notions of
an Anglo-Saxon culture” when there is a kind of pervasive international marketplace
all around the world which everyone is somehow part of.
Jorge Sousa Santos, Lisbon, Porugal
You do not think that there is a strong influence from some Anglo-Saxon schools that
are positioned in the USA or in the UK?
Neil Leach, London, United Kingdom
I agree, but look at American schools and see who is teaching in those places. Manuel
De Landa or Mark Wigley, they are from all over the world. In SCI-Arch, most of the
people are from Argentina or Italy or elsewhere. And yes, I think the American edu-
cational establishment, which is well funded, has been a platform for a certain way
of thinking that has become actually a very successful marketplace; but the student
body and faculty are extremely universal. There are not actually all that many Ameri-
cans either teaching or studying in American universities, in the end.
Antonino Saggio, Rome, Italy
Since tomorrow there will be a final session of debate at which we are supposed to
say something, I cannot use many arguments now; so excuse me if I am being a little
superficial, but I have to keep something in reserve. I just wanted to point to one
thing that I think is very interesting. I was thinking of Rivka Oxman’s presentation
today, and you probably remember that she started the presentation showing differ-
ent pedagogies. I will try to remember that our central topic is changes in pedagogy,
and that this is what we are supposed to be focused on. Anyway, in the different
pedagogies she showed there was one common factor that is really interesting and
that is that each of those pedagogies were a jump forward. Each of those pedagogies
was actually done in order to address a very important shift in culture and society.
We do not understand anything of what the Polytechnic is if we do not understand
that particular moment of birth of a completely new world of positivism, industrial-
ism, and all that. There can be no idea of polytechnics without addressing that issue.
And of course the Bauhaus is exactly the same thing. How can we conceive of the