466 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
is 100 Names and it starts with a very dramatic scene. What you see in this picture
is a library – the library next to the Borromini? in northern portal/Porto – where a
professor kills one hundred volumes, one hundred big names, where, in other words,
a teacher destroys one hundred very precious books, and this act sets off a whole
complex regeneration in his experience. You may ask why I am showing this to you,
or why I think this is important; and the answer is because, if we have to change
pedagogy, we have to decide very clearly what we do not want anymore. The first
act of creation is to be sure of what we do not want anymore; because we cannot
imagine anything, we must refuse first. All creation is preceded by rejection. Do not
panic, I am not saying that it is books that must necessarily be rejected: it is the
rejection itself that is important. And presumably we still remember that we are in
some way involved with the creation of the architect and of the tools; probably not
the same type of architecture however. So now we have to try to build a new model
of pedagogy, a new system – I mean, I have to try to build my own: I do not presume
to be sharing it with you, but you are free to take notes.
OK. What was the architectural model that we were facing in architectural educa-
tion, at least in the large majority of schools around the world? The idea basically that
you can chop knowledge. You can separate different aspects of making architecture,
of planning, and then you can basically build knowledge by chopping that. How? My
school works like that and I see many other schools that do so as well: there is the
science of construction, there is city planning, there is the history of restoration,
there is drawing. Around that kind of system you build knowledge, you build power,
you build a way of transmitting knowledge. That is the basic model and I am sure
that it is used in 80-85% of schools around the world in one manner or another.
So how do we change this? How do we destroy this? Because we have to destroy it
- at least, if I have to imagine, I have to destroy this. Why I have to destroy it is
a long story, and it is something we discussed in Venice quite extensively. As we
also discussed the loss of the idea of functionality, we discussed multidisciplinarity
and interdisciplinarity, we discussed the disappearance of fixed knowledge and the
importance of the Internet – because the Internet is one of the greatest things that
ever happened to humanity as a way to access knowledge and information through
a completely different process. So this, plus the paradigm shift, plus the fact that
we build value in completely different ways, draws me to the point where I have to
destroy that. Destroying, of course, is a tough act, and that is why we put the book
here, your book – it has become Oliver’s book from now on, I will let you take all
the responsibility of this.
Now, if I had the power, I would do it this way: I would formalise something based
on cycles. I do not know if these cycles would be organised by years, by decades, by
weeks, or by hours. I do not know, but basically there would be these five fundamental
cycles. Today, how you read, how you look for knowledge and how you formalise ques-
tions are the absolutely primary aspects of a new pedagogy, particularly the ability
to formalise questions. How to formalise questions is a very, very important point,
and I particularly appreciate the presentation of the young person from this school
on that topic, because it is clearly important that this action, the ability to formalise
questions, is absolutely fundamental to the new approach. Knowledge is no longer
something static that can be found consolidated in books. Knowledge is there. The