Clossing Session 469
subject. There cannot be a project without a subject, and there cannot be a project
without an object; nor can there be a project without a trajectory or without what
in French we call the surjet, that is to say the additional meaning.
What is interesting in comparing these two definitions is that the person, the
subject, appears only in the second case. Whereas in the first we have a rational
approach, to throw ahead, in the second we have a more subjective, a more human-
centered approach; and as we move towards the present, this logic of doing a (archi-
tectural) project –because the project is not something that belongs to architecture
exclusively– presumes a completely different conception of the human being. Because
we have this different conception of human beings we have completely different
definitions of architecture. If we are discussing today the changes in pedagogy it
is because we are experiencing this shift. I completely agree with Nino that we are
experiencing a very significant paradigm shift, which is accompanied by a shift in
the pedagogical paradigm, which is different from the pedagogical paradigms that
are already in place. We have to accommodate critically this new paradigm, which is
already applied in many schools of architecture.
Let us try to see which are the main structural differences occurred because of
that shift from a problem-solving understanding to a project based understanding
of architectural education. In the first case we are trying to teach our students
knowledge whereas in the second we try to teach our students skills. That is, we are
trying to teach them not only what they have to know, but chiefly what they will be
able to do by knowing what we are trying to give them as knowledge. And this is a
profound change in the domain of pedagogy, because if you start to think of a cur-
riculum in terms not of what we have to teach and learn, as in Neil’s presentation,
but on the contrary of what the students will be able to do when they finish the
educational cycle, then we must think about completely different ways of organis-
ing the curriculum, organising our classrooms, how we have to develop our teaching
approaches, methods, strategies, objectives, etc.
There is an interesting point to notice in this new approach, with regard to
competences. A competence that a graduate from a school of architecture will have
is not something very precise. It is a description, but not a very precise one. It is a
virtual condition. It is something that could be developed, but we never know what
its final form will be. So if we want to define the competences that our students
must have when they graduate, it means that we have to define virtually something
that could be developed in a way that we cannot exactly foresee. That is to say, we
project something like the DNA of the profile of the architect, and we leave it open,
and we create in our schools the framework, the environment, within which this DNA
will be developed. This DNA, in other words, is a parametric condition – because
that is exactly what parametric is, many parameters working together. We will influ-
ence some of these parameters, but it is the students with their different strategies,
different understandings, etc., who will have to develop them. It is not possible to
preview the profile from the beginning; all we can do is preview something common,
while at the same time we are assuring something different. This is an interesting
representation of the aspirations of contemporary architecture, which is generated,
imitating this DNA condition, which is not visible from the very beginning and
there are many internal and external parameters that we have to define in order to