Critical Pedagogy and Architectural Education

Author(s): C. Greig Crysler

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 4 (May, 1995), pp. 208-217
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
Architecture, Inc.
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 CriticalPedagogyand ArchitecturalEducation

C. GREIGCRYSLER,
Binghamton University

Combining insightsfromthe sociologyandpoliticaleconomyof the
professionswithseveralmorerecentanalysesof canonformation,this
articleprovidesa critiqueof the transmission modelof educationwhich
currentlydominatesarchitectural training.Thetransmissionmodelis
criticizedfor its tendencyto portraystudentsas passiveandhomogeneous
professionalsubjectsremovedfromsocialandpoliticalforces.Analterna-
tive modelof educationalpractice,informedby theoriesof critical
pedagogy,is considered.Criticalpedagogyprovidesinsightsintohowthe
existingframework educationmightbe challenged,
of architectural
the developmentof a moredemocraticlearningenvironment
permitting
informedby competinginterpretations, alternativehistories,anda new
rangeof situatedpoliticalissues.
ARCHITECTURALEDUCATION IS IN CRISIS. EDUCATORS HAVE COMMONLY
justified the practices of architectural schools (and their own reluc-
tance to change them) by pointing to both the demands and the
rewardswaiting in the "realworld." Now, however, an increasingly
diverse student body finds not only that these rewards are distrib-
uted with great inequality, but that they are dwindling or nonex-
istent. Architects are subject to the same unstable labor patterns that
have taken hold in other sectors of the economy. Many recent
graduatesaccept poor-paying jobs outside the profession while wait-
ing for their first break at unstable, often exploitive contract work
in an architectural office. Today, more skills are needed to obtain
employment that is less secure than ever before.
Within the university, new political formations organized by
feminists, people of color, gays and lesbians, and "postcolonial"sub-
jects from the Third World are challenging a curriculum that con-
tinues to define professional expertise in relation to the history and
theory of a self-actualizing, white, heterosexual, Euro-American
male consciousness. As architectural practice struggles to survive in
a highly competitive and increasingly specialized marketplace for
design services, new debates are emerging in the schools about ex-
actly what architecture is. Little by little, the ideological construc-
tion of autonomy, authority, and expertise is breaking apart.
The profession, slow to perceive this disaggregation, has re-
cently begun to examine ways in which the process can be halted.
Some suggest that architects should demand greater fees for their
services, apparently hoping to restore some measure of continuity
between the signification of expertise and its financial value in the
marketplace. Others argue that architects should now try to think
of themselves as the translators and managers of technical and so-
cial expertise from outside disciplines.' Still others suggest a back-
to-basics approach. The Prince of Wales's call for architects to be
Journal ofArchitectural Education, pp. 208-217
? 1995 ACSA, Inc.
trained in the traditions of classical humanism is perhaps the
clearest example of this latter tendency.
In the argument that follows, I suggest that as educators, we
must step back from proposing global strategies to shore up the
profession's authority. Instead, disaggregation should be viewed
positively, not as an end in itself, but as part of the process of break-
ing up hegemonic systems of knowledge and the identities they
constitute. Architectural education constructs a model of cultural
assimilation that assigns everything that differs from the corpus of
knowledge and practices embodied in the figure of the architect to
a marginalized, private realm. Students are encouraged to sever the
connections between personal and professional worlds. They learn
to subordinate their other identities to the task of becoming a pro-
fessional. Bombarded with complex assignments, working under
highly pressurized conditions, the student is constituted as a target
for a one-directional flow of skills and knowledge without the in-
terference of gender, race, class, or sexual orientation.
If we are to engage in a serious reappraisal of architectural
education, we must begin by examining the curricular and insti-
tutional practices that help to constitute the identity of an archi-
tect. This article attempts a critical analysis of some of these
practices. I begin by discussing an example of educational reform
undertaken at the Carleton University School of Architecture in
Ottawa, Canada, in response to complaints about the school's
learning environment. This is followed by a detailed examination
of the model of training that currently dominates architectural
education. I then consider an alternative approach informed by
theories of critical pedagogy, or education for critical conscious-
ness. I view critical pedagogy--with some reservations-as a pos-
sible means to begin to "open up" architectural education.
Critical pedagogy attempts to show the logic of specific
power relations and struggles in the educational process. Students
and teachers question how knowledge is constituted, by whom, for
whom, and for what purpose.2 Curricular and institutional prac-
tices are considered together as an instance of cultural politics that
"contains not only the logic of legitimation and domination, but
also the possibility for transformative and empowering forms of
pedagogy."3The school becomes a site of political articulation and
a "terrainof contestation over whose forms of knowledge, history,
visions, and authority will prevail as legitimate objects of learning
and analysis."4This formulation has profound consequences for
professional education. The humanist notion of subjectivity that
underpins professional claims to autonomy gives way in theories
of critical pedagogy to a self that is produced in signifying prac-
tices and is therefore not an originator of meaning.5

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Codes of Conduct
In July 1992, the president of Carleton University in Ottawa,
Canada, established an Architecture Review Committee (ARC) to
investigate complaints by students about sexual harassmentand psy-
chological abuse within the School of Architecture. The ARC pro-
duced a twenty-seven-page report that was made public at a news
conference on December 22, 1992.6 The report has been shrouded
in controversy from the moment it was released.7Carleton's direc-
tor has argued, for example, that well before its publication, the
school was aware of and already in the process of addressing many
of the issues and recommendations contained in the report. Indeed,
the very way in which it was made public-with little or no advance
warning given to the school or the director-served to bias many
in the educational community against its findings.
The ARC report has also been controversial for another rea-
son. It was written by an interdisciplinary team that did not include
an architect or a representative from the school.8 The composition
of the team has provoked questions about the legitimacy of its find-
ings; many within the profession continue to believe that only ar-
chitects are capable of forming judgments and criticisms about
architectural education. I disagree strongly with this position be-
cause it permits the de facto separation of institutions from the is-
sues and values of the wider social formation and thus allows
educational practice to become secretive and unaccountable, except
to those on the inside. I do, however, agree that the way the ARC
report was made public was unnecessarily confrontational. A valu-
able opportunity was missed when, having completed its investiga-
tion, the committee decided to publish its report ratherthan debate
its findings with the school as a part of the process.
Nevertheless, as someone who has been educated in two archi-
tectural schools, the reactions of "outsiders"to the hidden culture of
architectural education are notable for their familiarity rather than
their uniqueness. Indeed, one of the more unfortunate side effects
of their comments has been to isolate Carleton as a special case, al-
though it is clear that the practices criticized are commonplace
throughout architecturaleducation.9Written in the quasi-anthropo-
logical style of an explorer visiting an alien culture, the ARC report
describes architecturaleducation as something akin to one of Irving
Goffman's "total institutions." The chair of the committee described
the report "as an indictment of the total environment."'" Students
are observed graduallysevering ties with their friends and family and
abandoning interests outside the school to meet the intense demands
of the studio program. The report finds students at the end of the
term totally immersed in their schoolwork, neglecting personal hy-
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giene and diet, some living in the school in order to work around-
the-clock on design projects: "Students learn to focus their attention
and passion almost exclusively on their studio projects. They tend
to cut off or minimize relationships outside the school until their
primary social reality is constituted by fellow students sharing simi-
lar circumstances, and by their faculty tutors who can teach them
how to succeed. It is from this highly specialized community that
support and encouragement is sought and intensely needed by stu-
dents."11
In addition to leveling charges of creating a restricted real-
ity, the ARC also criticized the school's faculty for sexist and dis-
criminatory behavior and noted instances of verbal abuse, foul
language, and destructive comments at the end-of-year juries. In
interviews with committee members, students claimed that the
most resources and encouragement were offered to confident and
talented students, leaving "females and 'softer' male students" be-
hind.12The report noted that "there is also an ignorance of cultural
nuance which can work against good communication between stu-
dent and tutor: for example, a student from another culture where
verticality symbolizes spirituality has been baffled when, at a desk
crit the professor pointed to her tower structure and asked 'what's
with the penis?""3
The committee recommended, among other things, that
greater emphasis be placed on courses other than studio and that
goals be set for hiring female and minority faculty. Specific propos-
als were also made regarding studio teaching, suggesting that evalu-
ations be based on written criteria laid out in advance to eliminate
ambiguity and misunderstanding and that students receive a twice-
yearly audit of their progress. The narrow focus of these recommen-
dations is striking. There is no attempt to examine, for example, the
content of individual courses. In a report that is vigorous in its criti-
cism of racism and sexism, the Eurocentric emphasis of the history
and theory program goes unmentioned. The only part of the cur-
riculum that is discussed in any detail is the studio program, yet at-
tention is focused primarilyon the student's long working hours and
the way projects are criticized and marked. Social relations are thus
separated from the putative content of the educational process, yet
these relations escape serious consideration because they are ulti-
mately viewed as an essential part of becoming a professional. The
report accepts that architecturaleducation is a process of professional
indoctrination, in which faculty have tremendous power over stu-
dents: "Intrinsic to program expectations must be allowance for at
least a bare minimum of time to attend to personal obligations and
personal care. Students of architecture, must for their part, take the
responsibility to recognize that indoctrination into this profession
Crysler
 requiresextraordinary time andeffort,andthatotherprioritieshave EmptyVessels
to be set asidewhile the professionalgoal is beingpursued.""
What is in questionis not the presenceof an asymmetrical Architectural education is a lengthy process that, under special in-
powerrelation,but its "abuse."The concernis to establishwaysin stitutional conditions, creates exchange values and makes them the
whichthis powerrelationcan be reducedto acceptablenormsof be- property of individuals. Before professional services are sold, "ho-
haviorand thus be institutionallyregulated.The behavioralempha- mogenized years of schooling and standardized credentials provide
sis of the report is underscored by its most far-reaching a 'universalequivalent' into which exchange values can be translated
recommendation. TheARCcalledforstudentsandfacultyto develop and by which they can be measured."'19The monopoly of instruc-
a code of conductthatwouldestablisha new systemof institutional tion and credentialing is the structural condition for the creation of
"law"to governbehaviorin the school:"Theapplicationof thiscode professional exchange value.
to the eliminationof sexistlanguageand behavior,sexualinnuendo, Because it is organized around imparting a standard set of
racistlanguageand slur,and otherdiscriminatory behaviormust be skills that defines what it means to be an architect, architectural
discussedand madeclearto all.""The school'seffortsin developing education is strongly biased toward what has been called the
the codewereinitiallyrepresented in severalchapterson appropriate "transmission model" of pedagogy. This form of schooling sees
school behaviorin a studenthandbookthat was preparedimmedi- students as a unitary body removed from ideological and material
atelyafterthe releaseof the ARC reportand is now issuedto all in- forces and thus "the same underneath it all"-blank screens ready
comingstudents.'6Additionaleffortsby the schoolto formalizethe to receive unmediated transmissions of skills and information as
code have subsequentlybecomepartof a largerplan to developa delineated by experts.20 The conception of an undifferentiated
comprehensive humanrightspolicyfor the entireuniversity."This mass is central to architectural education because its primary goal
shift is indicativeof a now commonpatternof institutionalreform is to produce a standardized product: a professional armed with a
in NorthAmericanuniversities,whichoften beginswith a challenge corpus of marketable skills. 21
to a specificset of practicesor a particularincidentand ultimately Competence is therefore linked to the relative amount of
concludesin the productionof a centralizedset of regulationsde- knowledge received. It follows that those with the least knowledge
signedto actasa baselineforallsocialrelationsacrossthe university.18 are also those least able to participate in the public sphere of archi-
The code-of-conductmodel of institutionalreformoffersan tectural discourse. This creates an educational community stratified
importantmechanismthroughwhich women and minoritiescan according to the amount of knowledge accumulated. First-yearstu-
bringinjusticesout into the open and seekredress.It is thereforea dents, for example, are relatively isolated from those in upper years
valuablesite of resistance,but it is also one that is deeplyproblem- because of their comparative "emptiness" as vessels of knowledge.
atic.The juridicalstatusof the code as partof university"law"gives One of the common goals of first-yeartraining (with its emphasis on
it the authorityof absolutetruth.This tendsto pushotherexplana- making kites, shelters, and experiments with primary form) is to re-
tions of oppressionasidein favorof those that supportthe logic of turn the student to a state of intellectual infancy in an attempt to
the code.Codesof conductalsotendto producea situationin which produce in the budding architect what Kazys Varnelis has called an
actualconditionsareconsideredto mirrorthosedefinedby the code: "innocent eye.'"22Discourse between strata of students is therefore
That is, becausethe code exists,discriminationis presumedto have likely to assume a paternalistic pattern in which prestige flowing
beendealtwith, thusallowingcontroversies aboutracistcurriculum from accumulated experience functions as a sign of maturity: "Pres-
andauthoritarian teachingpracticesto be sweptunderthe carpet,or tige filters down from the 'great men' in a field to those who study
displacedto a theaterof bureaucraticmediationfar removedfrom or work under them, through ideological mechanisms; the formation
the day-to-dayworkingsof the school. The point is that the code of cults and the vicarious enjoyment of the great men's prestige by
allowsa whole rangeof administrativeconstraintsformedaround underlings are characteristicof the training situation, but they also
the conceptof voluntaristwill to dominatepublicdiscourse.Vari- extend to the field of work. They ensure the new professional'swill-
ous formsof oppressionarereducedto individualbehavior,andthe ing and even happy acceptance of the hierarchicalorder of his pro-
role that institutionaland curricularpracticesplay in shapingthe fession and of the elite-defined knowledge that underlies it.'"23
learningprocessand subjectivitydisappearsfrom view. It is these Faculty occupy powerful positions in relation to students be-
practicesthat I will examinenext. cause as "full vessels," they embody and control access to what stu-

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dents require to become "full"themselves. However, faculty are di-
vided internally-often according to the bipolar distinction of ar-
chitecture as a technocratic profession or an art-between
nuts-and-bolts faculty, who insist that schools should transmit pri-
marily practical/technical skills, and those who argue that the
school's primary function is to provide training in different aes-
thetic ideologies. Magali Sarfatti Larson claims this opposition is
founded in the contradictory status of a discipline that secures its
institutional claims to autonomy by calling itself an art but is at the
same time dependent on the construction of built exemplars, and
hence practice, to continue formulating fresh propositions.24 On
one side of the discipline is the ideological construction of au-
tonomy. On the other is practicaldependence on the heteronomous
activities of building needed to keep the profession alive by dem-
onstrating its social usefulness.
In much the same way that the school regards students as
empty vessels, it is itself caught between competing forces, ranging
from the demands of the profession and the market, to the internal
bureaucracy of the university and the state educational apparatus.
This "inbetweenness"grows out of the contradictory position of ar-
chitectural education, both within the university and outside it. Its
primary purpose is to produce graduateswith marketable skills, but
at the same time, by locating schools in universities, training is ef-
fectively removed from the marketplace.25The actual connection to
the marketplace is surrounded by the complex mediation of the
university system, producing resistance to market ideology and, at
the same time, requiring constant intervention by the profession to
prevent undue slippage. The contradiction has resulted in the pro-
duction of a whole class of bureaucratic supervisors who specialize
in overseeing the production of producers.
Ratesof Return
Not surprisingly, the transmission model has also been referred to
as the "banking model" of education, underlining the fundamen-
tally consumerist, objectifying logic of the system.26 One of the
most pronounced effects of the transmission model is to convert
knowledge from a social product grounded in relations of power to
the benign status of information and skills; like money, it is
aestheticized and exchanged.
In the architecture school, decisions about which faculty
member to identify with become crucial because in doing so, the
student is deciding on the type of cultural capital he or she will ac-
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cumulate.27Faculty are regarded as resources from which students
receive "interest payments" in return for the time invested in their
projects. This relation also operates in reverse:Talented students are
interpellated into the tutor's system of cultural capital. Whereas a
novice architect can add luster to his or her credentials through as-
sociation with a famous teacher, that teacher's reputation is legiti-
mated through the production of students that the profession
deems masterful.
Indeed, the reputation of the school is linked to the perceived
value of its human assets, in terms of both faculty and students.
Thus, the schools engage in vigorous competition to attract quality
students by heralding the excellence of the faculty, and two forms
of symbolic capital become intertwined. Significantly, hiring deci-
sions now combine an older model of industrial product control
with an adherence to the "precession of the model." As Sande
Cohen notes, increasingly, "the claim to knowledge ... is more im-
portant than its actual possession. New faculty are hired as 'players'
whose texts enable the administrative sector to thicken its image/
exchange identity, the increase of value imputed directly to the aca-
demic institution itself."28
AffectiveValue:Bureaucraciesof DislocatedKnowledge
The canon is a discursive instrument of transmission "situated his-
torically within a specific institution of reproduction: the school."29
The canon not only represents a core set of ideologies, it is also an
institutional process through which knowledge and instruction are
bureaucratizedand preserved.As John Guillory notes, the canon as-
sumes the form of a legacy that is inexhaustible because it appears
to reproduce itself; it is "wealth never consumed by consumption.
The educational apparatus regulates, because it makes possible, ac-
cess to this inheritable treasure. Individual works are taken up (pre-
served, disseminated, taught) and confront their receptors first as
canonical, as cultural capital."30
Critics have noted that the canon plays a central role in re-
ducing knowledge to discrete, exchangeable components. Gayatri
Spivak describes the operation of canon production in the acad-
emy as the central means of objectification in which the socius is
decoded and deterritorialized, only to be recoded and revalued as
"affective value"-in this case, as the texts that best suit the func-
tional ends of the canon: "'What is worth ... studying, teaching,
talking about' appears as 'What can best be parceled out into a
fourteen- or ten-week format."''31
Crysler
 Unlike liberal arts programs, architecture schools allow stu-
dents only very limited power in designing their studies. Almost all
courses are required or core courses, particularly in the early years
of training. Thus, the canon is present not only in the specification
of materials within courses, but also in the specification of the cur-
riculum as a whole. Time management as a pedagogical principle
is central to the entire training regime. Each student is given,
through the curriculum framework, a bank account: four weeks for
this, two weeks for that. Time must be efficiently managed; if it is
squandered, "failure"will result.
The studio program, which generally carries two to three
times the credit weight of service units like architectural history, is
the top priority. The other areasfall in descending order according
to their relative credit weighting. This tends to structure the cur-
riculum in a satellite formation in which clusters of specialized
knowledge hover around the centrality of the studio regime. Al-
though the clusters (professional practice, structures, history, and
theory) tend toward the transmission model, they are also clearly
demarcated as peripheral to the centrality of the design studio.
The time demands of the architecture school are an impor-
tant part of its folklore.32The student is required to perform many
different functions within an escalating pattern of obligations.
Within this internal economy of constant deadlines and panic, the
credit weighting officially designated to each element of the curricu-
lum becomes crucial in determining how much attention it will re-
ceive from the student. Only through the increased refinement of
skills and competence within a given set of criteria can more time
be obtained. Thus, an ability to excel is contingent on the student's
ability to produce the time to do so. The production of time and
talent are therefore directly linked.
Thus, two systems of temporality are at work in the archi-
tecture school. First, there is the unmoving, stagnant temporality
of the canon, changing so slowly it seems outside time itself. As
Pierre Bourdieu notes, bureaucratic mediation ensures this slow-
ness, but the pace of change is also kept to a minimum by the
timeless status attributed to received wisdom and the aura of re-
spectful gravity that surrounds it: "The healthy slowness which
people like to feel is in itself a guarantee of reliability . . . is really
the most authentic proof of obsequium, unconditional respect for
the fundamental principles of the established order."33Second,
there is the frantic pace of knowledge consumption. Here the
emphasis is on getting things done, on establishing what is re-
quired and meeting those conditions as quickly and efficiently as
possible. There is scarcely time to conform to the basic pattern, let
alone question its presuppositions. A contradictory image is pro-
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duced, simultaneously productive and atavistic. The architecture
school is a hive of activity in which students are busy completing
an arrayof projects, essays, and assignments. Buzz saws blare in the
model workshop; there is the constant smell of fresh paint in the
air. This is matched by a singular lack of innovation and change
in curriculum content and institutional structure. The two pro-
cesses are mutually constitutive; the busier the students and fac-
ulty, the greater the potential for stasis.
The underlying logic of exchange insists that knowledge be
differentiated and categorized, that its value be made specific and
hence autonomous. Once knowledge is reduced to the acquisition
of skills, learning involves the passage through different skill areas,
each specialized and contained from the next. Thus, the transmis-
sion model produces a double bind: a subjectivity whose agency
resides in the passive reception of the wisdom of elders and that
takes specialization ratherthan interaction between forms of knowl-
edge as the norm.34 The architecture school has often been com-
pared to a boot camp. The militaristic metaphor might overstate the
regimented style of training students undergo, but the training is
military inasmuch as success becomes equivalent with ascent
through a hierarchythat remains unchallenged precisely because the
hierarchy is the challenge.
LocatedKnowledge
What form should political action conducted at the level of peda-
gogical practice take to contest the model of education outlined
above? In this section, I consider how the theories of critical peda-
gogy might be useful in helping to initiate a piece-by-piece trans-
formation of architectural education. Critical pedagogy
encourages students to voice their difference from normative val-
ues and histories to better understand the relations of power that
construct their social subjectivity: "By illuminating the productive
effects of power, it becomes possible for teachers as intellectuals to
develop forms of practice which take seriously how subjectivities
are constructed within particular 'regimes of truth.' . . . As trans-
formative intellectuals, educators can serve to uncover and exca-
vate those forms of historical and subjugated knowledge that point
to experiences of suffering, conflict and collective struggle."35
Formerly suppressed groups are empowered by "bringing
them into voice" so that their histories can be told. Critical peda-
gogy therefore demands a reformulation of the knowledge-as-accu-
mulated-capital model of education by focusing on "the link
between historical configurations of social forms and the way they
21 2
work subjectively."36 The fight for a democraticsocietyconsistsin
reforming the institutionsof publiclife (suchas architecturaledu-
cation and practice)to allow differentvoices to be heard and to
participatein a nonhierarchical fashionin the ongoingconstruction
of society.37Democracy and citizenship are thus linked in theories
of criticalpedagogyto the notion of voice.
In the faceof the deterritorialization
of knowledgethatstands
at the centerof canonproduction,criticalpedagogyinsiststhat the
speakerlocatehis or herpositionin relationto the knowledgecon-
structed. Students are encouragedto confront their experiences
within differentsystemsof subjectionon a personallevel through
everydayandvernacularformsof speechthatareoften at oddswith
the "objective,"unsituatedlanguageconsideredto be a sign of ra-
tionaljudgmentin the academy.38 Whereasthe transmissionmodel
constitutesa coherent,unifiedprofessionalsubjectivityby relegat-
ing differenceto a marginalizedprivaterealm, criticalpedagogy
makesthe way in which differenceis structuredin and throughre-
lationsof powera centralconcernof the educationalprocess.
Althoughsuch discoursescreatean opening for studentsto
speakwhereone did not exist before,this opening carriesits own
problems.The visibilityof subjugatedknowledgeis linkedto the au-
thorizationof marginalexperiences.As ChandraTalpadeMohanty
has noted, a focus on the centralityof experiencetends to lead to
exclusions:It often silencesthosewho areseen to be partof "ruling
class"groups,leadingto whatshe hascalledthe "moremarginalthan
thou"attitude,in which"whitestudentsareconstructedas marginal
observersand studentsof color as the realknowers."39 This dyadic
constructionpreventsstudentsfromunderstanding the "co-implica-
tion" of difference:"Co-implicationrefersto the idea that all of us
(firstand thirdworld)sharehistoriesaswell as certainresponsibili-
ties: ideologiesof racedefineboth blackand white peoples,just as
genderideologiesdefineboth womenand men. Thus, whileexperi-
ence is an enablingfocusin the classroom,unlessit is explicitlyun-
derstoodas historical,contingent,and the resultof interpretation,
it can coagulateinto frozen,binary,psychologisticpositions."40?
Mohantyarguesthatsuchbinarythinkingleadsto the reduc-
tion of a complexlysituatedpoliticsof knowledgeto a questionof
sensitivityandrespect.The resultis a pedagogyof"cordialrelations"
in which the individualis defined as representativeof an autono-
mous culturalgroup.The historicalinterconnectionsand conflicts
between groups are erased. Each becomes a fragment in an
aestheticizedsocialmosaicand is consideredasvaluableandworthy
as the next. The "depoliticization and dehistoricization"
of culture
that resultmake the implicit managementof racein the name of
cooperationandharmonypossible:"Becausethis pluralismdoes not
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addressthe systematicway in which poweris constructedand lived,
it servesto reinforceracism,ratherthan challengeoppression.""4
Thus, a pedagogyof cordial relationsis intimatelylinked to the
projectof connoisseurship, of culturalappreciationabstractedfrom
conflictand concretehistoricalstruggle.The canonicalstructureof
the university,with its tendencyto divideethnicityinto discretear-
eas of specialization,reinforcesthe divisionbetweengroupsand re-
duces the possibilityto see the way in which cultureis relational.
Pluralismobeysthe processof deterritorialization anddifferentiation
that is essentialto makingknowledgean exchangeablecommodity.
Criticalpedagogycanalsocollapseinto comfortablehalfmea-
sures-for example,bringinghistoricalstruggleinto the classroom,
but only as the basisof ethicaland moralconditionsconceivedin
advanceby the teacher.This is anotherversionof the pedagogyof
cordialrelations,in which the criticalpedagoguehelpsstudentsto
"speak"but does so only on the termshe or she deemsappropriate.
As ElizabethEllsworthhasnoted,criticalpedagogycanthusbecome
synonymouswith a form of consciousnesstherapyadministeredto
the "voiceless."42Constitutingthe studentasvoicelessandthe teacher
as speech-enablerreturnsthe teacherto the positionof dominance
thatcriticalpedagogyclaimsto challenge.Thus,teacher-orchestrated
empowermentand dialoguecan give the illusionof equalitywhile
leavingthe authoritarian natureof the traditionalteacher-studentre-
lationshipintact:"Wheneducationalresearchers writingaboutcriti-
cal pedagogyfail to examinethe implicationsof the gendered,raced
and classedteacherand studentfor the theoryof criticalpedagogy,
theyreproduceby defaultthecategoryof the 'criticalteacher'--aspe-
cificformof the generichumanthatunderliesclassicliberalthought.
Likethe generichuman,the genericcriticalteacheris not of course
genericat all.Rather,the termdefinesa discursivecategorypredicated
on the currentmythicalnorm, namely:young, White, Christian,
middleclass,able-bodied,thin, rationalman."43
In contrast,Ellsworthstressesthat both voice and silenceare
not the propertyof individualsbut areproducedin a sharedfashion
thatis tiedto specificcontexts.Silenceis oftena positionthatis safely
returnedto whenmakingstrategiesforvisibility.To denythe politi-
cal importanceof silence is thereforeas oppressiveas denyingthe
rightto speak.Moreover,the conceptionof the studentas possess-
ing an authenticbut hiddenvoice that is entirelyhis or her own is
deeplyproblematicbecause"itis impossibleto speakfromallvoices
at once, or fromanyone, withoutthe tracesof othersbeingpresent
and interruptive."44 Ellsworth'salternativeto the genericcritical
pedagogueis a teacherwho abandonsthe superiorposition of the
knowingpoliticalsubject/leader and,with it, presuppositionsthatare
informedby abstract,unsituated(and hence unattainable)utopian
Cryster
politicalgoals. Instead,the teacherand studentsengagein an en- In a collection of essayscalled Voicesin ArchitecturalEducation,
counterwith oppressiveformationsandpowerrelationsin a waythat Thomas Dutton suggests that studio should take up the issue of mass
acknowledgestheirmutualimplicationin them. housing. In describing his reasons for assigning students to design
Critical pedagogymust also be theorizedin relationto its housing for a downtown site bordering on a "low/moderate income
broaderinstitutionalcontext.The growinginterestin nontraditional area,"Dutton states, "Placingmy students in this kind of context-a
knowledgeshouldnot be understoodsolelyas the workof minorities way of life of which they know little-propels them to engage com-
who havepushed"marginal" discoursesonto the agenda.Another munity leaders, city planners, local non-profit neighborhood-devel-
force, far less progressivepolitically,needs "informationaboutthe opment corporations, private developers, and others that can shed
other."John Guilloryclaimsthat just as industrialcapitalis being light on the scope and definition of the problem."48When Dutton
shiftedto the ThirdWorld,a processof culturalcapitalflight is at suggests that students' contact with a way of life of which they know
workin the North Americanuniversity.He suggeststhat this shift- little will "propel" them to engage with other experts, he recalls a
ing of resourceshas been partlyresponsiblefor the divisionsnow notion of the architect as synthesizer and technician of need that
characterizing the humanities syllabus between Western and harkens back to the days of Walter Gropius at Harvardand his con-
multicultural, canonical and noncanonical, hegemonic and cept of integrationism. Gropius also rejectedthe isolated emphasis on
nonhegemonic An emergingclassof globaltechnocrats
works.45 wants single buildings and encouraged interdisciplinarycollaborationswith
to knowabout,forexample,Asianhistoryandculture,to maketrade sociologists and others concerned with the study of society as an ob-
junketsand businesstransactions successful.Chinais now beingag- ject of scientific investigation and control. Indeed, Dutton recallsthe
gressivelyexploredas a newmarketforNorthAmericanarchitectural "sting of the 1960s" as a "time of great questioning" when the "util-
services.It is not by sheercoincidencethat architectureschoolsare ity of social science" in architecturewas valued.49
suddenlyengagedin the taskof compilingcanonicalcourseson the Attempts to broadenstudents' understandingof the social con-
"greatworks"of Asianarchitecture. Herethe multiculturalcanon,by text in which they operate are vital. However, if students investigate
obeyingthe depoliticized,encyclopediclogicof the liberaluniversity, society without questioning the position they occupy in doing so, the
takeson a distinctlyneocolonialdimension. role of the distanced expert is reinforced ratherthan questioned. The
The emergingdivisionsbetweenWesternand non-Western "social"and its human contents will continue to appearas objectified
curriculahave also exposedthe marketcompetitionthat is latent, problems ratherthan as representations of problems in which the po-
but alwayspresent,betweendifferentformsof knowledgein the uni- sitions of both observerand observedare constructed. Indeed, it is the
versity.Thus, for example,white tenuredprofessorswho teachthe substitution of a more compassionatemoral position in the narratives
traditionalcanonmight opposemulticulturalism not out of racism of urban management that often allows the construction of a domi-
or a desireto silenceminorities(thoughthis mightalsobe the case), nant/subordinate relation of power (compassionate middle class/low
but ratherout of fearthat increasedstatusfor such discourseswill income in need) to be excluded from analysis.The problem of domi-
erode their own professionalstatusand thus threatentheir liveli- nation is presumedto be solved by an enlightened and morally appro-
hood. The resultis a "fearof falling"for teachersof the traditional priate outlook. Yet in this context, it is precisely how morally
Westerncanon, which has been exacerbatedby the oversupplyof appropriate knowledge is constituted and the relations of power at
academics.46 As competition for jobs has heightened,resentment stake in doing so that should become central to the learning process.
overinstitutionalmechanismsthatattemptto rectifysystemicracial A second attempt to deal with some of the issues raised by
and genderimbalancestend to be viewedby the dominantgroups critical pedagogy occurred at the University of California at Berke-
with increasinghostility, resultingin the productionof what has ley, where a group of first-year students from architecture, land-
been called"thenew racism."47 scape architecture, and visual design programs were asked to
produce an "ancestor'shouse" in clay, as part of an introductory de-
sign course. There were few requirements for the project other than
Techniciansof Need/Tokensof Difference a maximum outside dimension of 16" x 16". The project descrip-
tion stated, "You are asked to invent a house for an ancestor, a per-
Beforeconcluding,I will referto two examplesof studio teaching son who strongly figures in your past. This ancestor may be
that illustratesome of the issues that can arisewhen teachersat- prehistoric, or just a generation away. However, the house should
tempt to adaptcriticalpedagogyto architecturaleducation. convey to us the interconnection between the two of you."'5

May1995 JAE48/4 21 4

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 The radicalpotential in the ancestor'shouse lies in the attention
it focuses on the relation between historical representation and the
construction of memory. Not only does the project allow students to
reclaim personalhistory as part of an understandingof largerpolitical
and social processes,it also invites a considerationof the way in which
architectural practice has traditionally marginalized and made such
histories invisible. Memory-and how it is regulated within institu-
tions-assumes a political dimension when linked to the construction
of subjectivity.
Students working on houses of a similar kind or from the per-
spective of similar cultures "found themselves talking and collaborat-
ing-a departure from the more traditional spirit of competition.
Soon they started helping each other, sharing ideas and techniques
... Each student's particularsearch for a cultural connection prod-
ded other students to take similar risks.The very diversity of the class
was a bonus here, because it encouraged students to push beyond
comfortable cultural stereotypes. Far from an inhibiting factor, the
multiculturalsetting encouraged students to go furtherin making the
personal cultural and the cultural personal.""51
The ancestor's house provoked another significant shift in the
students' work. They were unable to turn to glossy architectural
magazines and other contemporary sources to provide precedents
for their designs. It also transformed the role of the tutors in the stu-
dio. The transmission model turns studio personnel into store-
houses of knowledge to which students are beholden; in this
project, students possessed the knowledge deemed important to
carryout design. Tutors performed technical functions and "did not
want to influence the way in which students would wish to repre-
sent their own notion of ancestry, past and self."52
This project also highlights some of the difficulties posed by
working in the arena of cultural identity. While opening important
new avenues of investigation and discussion, the emphasis on
handcrafted miniaturization also suggests discourses of mastery and
totality. The clay models have the potential to become tokens of oth-
erness. One can envisage the exhibition that accompanied the con-
clusion of the assignment, where "more than a hundred models were
set out in the main lobby on long rows of tables"53as the perfect
embodiment of what Homi Bhabha has called the liberal university's
musdeimaginaireof the exotic.54
It is interesting to consider whether the disruption to the hi-
erarchical social relations of the transmission model that the
project caused was possible because it was a "cultural event"-easy
for everyone to endorse because it operated in a temporary fash-
ion on the edges of the various design disciplines it served. Indeed,
the primitivism of the models seems far removed from the sophis-
21 5
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ticatedcomputermodelingthat is now centralto the architectural
studio and that functions as the new sign of relevance,
performativity,and "real-worldness"for architecturaltraining.
The associationscraftedbetween othernessand primitivismsug-
gest that ancestryand culturalidentityexist in a premodernEden.
Here clay takes on the significationof past, helping to safelydi-
vide difference from the political present, and thus allows it
to become "cultural."
Conclusion
Although discoursesof criticalpedagogycreatethe possibilityof
counterhegemonic analyticspaceswithinthe university,theirsuccess
in doingso is linkedto an abilityto understandthe waytheyarein-
tertwinedwith theircontextof productionand reception.To avoid
a descentinto one-sidednarrativesof fixity (the heroicnarrativeof
the teacherleading studentstowardemancipation,for example),
criticalpedagogymust acknowledgeits dependenceon-and am-
bivalence toward-the hegemonic discoursesand institutions it
seeksto disrupt.Criticalpedagogyis reducedto little morethan an
elaboraterepressiontheorywhen it is presupposedthatits goalswill
be achievedby replacingone authoritariansystem of imaginary
totalizationwith anotherthat is somehowmoremulticultural.
Oppositionalspacescreatedin architectural schoolsfor alter-
nativehistoriesand previouslyexcludedvoices to takehold should
not, therefore,be institutionalizedor practicedas static placesof
communityand unifiedsubjectivity.These spacesshould be theo-
rizedas interdependentsitesof contradictionand conflict.Volatile
and disruptive,they should encouragework that constantlychal-
lenges not only its own construction,but the incorporativepro-
cessesof professionaleducationas a whole. Insteadof "top-down"
reforms,we need to considerways to achievea selectivejamming
of the machineryof architectural education.We shouldaim to pro-
duce momentsof crisisand open-endedpossibilityin which con-
tested historiesand a competing rangeof situatedpolitical issues
become integralto the criticaltransformationof the field. This is
the firststep in the constructionof a moredemocraticlearningen-
vironmentand profession.
Acknowledgments
This articleis part of a largerstudy of architecturaleducationin
Canada,which was made possibleby a projectgrantfrom the Ar-
Crysler
chitectureSectionof the CanadaCouncil.I wouldalsoliketo thank
Abidin Kusnofor his valuablecriticismsof an earlierdraft.
Notes
1. This is the solution proposed by Dana Cuff in Architecture: The Story of
Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 247-63.
2. Fabienne Worth, "Postmodern Pedagogy in the Multicultural Class-
room: For Inappropriate Teachers and Imperfect Spectators," Cultural Critique
(Fall 1993): 6.
3. Henry Giroux, Schoolingand the StruggleforPublicLife: CriticalPeda-
gogy in the Modern Age (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), p. 165.
4. Ibid., p. 121.
5. Worth, "Postmodern Pedagogy," p. 7.
6. See TheArchitectureReviewCommittee'sReportto R.H. Farquar[ARC
Report] (Ottawa: Carleton University, 1992).
7. In a response published soon afterward, the director claims that many of
the problems cited were already being addressed, raising questions about the
report's sensitivity to ongoing change within the school. In addition, Benjamin
Gianni criticizes the way the report in an envelope was made public. He states that
"the Director was given a copy of the report marked 'confidential' at 5:00 P.M.on
the evening before the press conference. The Director was told that these arrange-
ments were being made to accommodate the fact that he would not be able to at-
tend the conference. The Dean received his copy at the press conference. Neither
the Dean nor the Director understood that the Report was to be distributed to the
press at the conference. There was no reason to believe that this confidential report
was intended for distribution." Benjamin Gianni, Responseto the Architecture Re-
view Committee Report(Ottawa: Carleton University School of Architecture, 1993),
p. A-67.
8. The committee included the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, a
psychologist, a biologist, and a retired professor of social work. Two confidential
observers also joined the committee: a business agent for the teacher's union, and
the university ombudsman. The ombudsman was replaced by the Co-ordinator for
the Status of Women and a social worker in University Medical Services for a num-
ber of student interviews completed as part of the committee's assessment of the
school.
9. If anything, the pressures of the national accrediting process-long es-
tablished in the United States and recently reorganized in Canada-have caused
similarities between schools to grow. See, for example, Committee of Canadian
Architectural Councils, (CCAC), A Canadian Educational Standardfor Admission
to ProvincialArchitectural in Canada (Ottawa:CCAC, 1994).
Associations
10. Graham Fraser, "Architecture Students Abused, Report Says. Teaching
Evironment at Carleton Called Discriminatory, Unprofessional, Sexist," Globe and
Mail, Dec. 23, 1992: A7.
11. ARC Report, p. 8.
12. Ibid., p. 12.
13. Ibid., p. 18.
14. Ibid., p. 16.
15. Ibid.
16. See the Carleton UniversitySchool ofArchitecture Student Hand-
book,1993-94 (Ottawa: Carleton University School of Architecture, 1993).
17. Conversation with Benjamin Gianni, Director, Carleton University
May1995 JAE48/4
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School of Architecture, January 24, 1995.
18. See, for example, Mark Yount, "The Normalizing Powers of Affirmative
Action," in Mark Yount and John Caputo, eds., Foucault and the Critique oflInsti-
tutions (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), pp. 191-229
A Sociological
19. MagaliSarfattiLarson,TheRiseofProfessionalism: Analy-
sis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 211.
20. Giroux,Schoolingand the StruggleforPublicLife,p. 121.
21. Larson,RiseofProfessionalism,
p. 230.
22. Kazys Varnelis, "The Spectacle of the Innocent Eye: Vision and Cyni-
cal Reason and the Discourses of Architecture in Post-War America" (Diss., Cornell
University, 1994), chapts. 1, 5.
23. Larson, Rise ofProfessionalism, p. 230.
24. See Magali Sarfatti Larson, Behind the Postmodern Facade (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993), pp. 5-6.
p. 212.
25. Larson,RiseofProfessionalism,
26. Giroux,Schoolingand the StruggleforPublicLife,pp.113-33.
27. Pierre Bourdieu notes that "we cannot entirely understand the phenom-
ena of the concentration of academic power without also taking into consideration
the contribution made by the claimants, by way of the strategies which leads them
toward the most powerful protectors. These are strategies of the habitus, therefore
more conscious than unconscious. Just as the master, according to his panegyrist,
seemed to accede to the dominant posts 'as if from some natural necessity, without
intriguing or postulating,' so the most cunning pupils, who are also the most
favoured, have no need to calculate opportunities or weigh up chances before of-
fering their gratitude and custom to the most influential masters. It is another way
in which capital breeds capital." Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, trans. Peter
Collier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984), p. 91.
28. SandeCohen, Academiaand the Lusterof Capital(Minneapolis:Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 42.
29. John Guillory,CulturalCapital.TheProblemofLiteraryCanonForma-
tion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 56.
30. Ibid.
31. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Outside in the TeachingMachine (London:
Routledge, 1993), p. 62.
32. Dana Cuff notes that architecture school "involves the intense indoc-
trination characteristic of an initiation rite: a high degree of commitment, a cer-
tain amount of isolation from non-group members, cohesion within the group,
sacrifices, and rituals marking passage at various stages." Cuff, Architecture: The
StoryofPractice,p. 122.
33. Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, p. 87.
34. Bourdieu argues that competence defined by knowledge gained from
the wisdom of elders defines an opposition between art and science: "The complex
and multidimensional opposition between the clinical practitioners and the biolo-
gists in the medical faculties ... can be described as the opposition between an
art, guided by the 'experience' culled from the example of their elders, and acquired
over a period of time through attention to individual cases, and a science, which
is not satisfied with external appearances which prompt diagnosis, but seeks to
grasp underlying causes." Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, p. 59.
35. Giroux, Schoolingand theStruggleforPublicLife,p. 213.
36. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "On Race and Voice: Challenges for Lib-
eral Education in the 1990s," Cultural Critique (Winter 1989-90), p.185.
37. Giroux, Schoolingand theStruggleforPublicLife,pp. 28-38.
38. Mohanty, "On Race and Voice," p. 207.
39. Ibid.
21 6
 40. Ibid.
41. Homi Bhabha,"TheThirdSpace,"in JonathanRutherford,ed., Identity,
Community, Culture,Difference(London:Lawrenceand Wishart,1990), p. 208.
42. ElizabethEllsworth,"WhyDoesn't This Feel Empowering?Working
throughthe RepressiveMythsof CriticalPedagogy,"in CarmenLukeandJennifer
Gore,eds., Feminisms and CriticalPedagogy(London:Routledge,1992),pp. 109-19.
43. Ibid., p. 102.
44. Ibid., pp. 103-4.
45. Guillory, CulturalCapital,p. 45.
46. BarbaraEhrenreicharguesthat the once secureand stodgyprofessoriat
dividesbetweenthe "starprofessors,at one extreme,who earnnearsix figuresand
teach few courses,and at the other extreme,the growingintellectualproletariatof
part-timefaculty,who commutefromcampusto campusto piece togethera living."
BarbaraEhrenreich,FearofFalling:TheInnerLifeofthe MiddleClasses(New York:
HarperPerennial,1990), p. 246.
47. SeeYount, "NormalizingPowersof AffirmativeAction,"p. 223. Yount
suggeststhat "thiscircleof attitudes,assumptions,and (mis)perceptionsthusserves
to justify resentmenttowardsblacks.And that this resentmentcannot be 'racist'
becauseit is justified.And since racialprejudiceis now justifiedby this effectivera-
tionale, what might once have counted as racismwill no longer be so." See also
Stanley Fish, "ReverseRacismor How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black,"in
AtlanticMonthly (Nov. 1993): 128-36.
48. Thomas Dutton, "The Hidden Curriculumand the Design Studio:
Towarda CriticalStudioPedagogy,"in ThomasDutton, ed., Voicesin Architectural
Education.CulturalPoliticsandPedagogy(New York:Greenwood,1991), p. 175.
49. Ibid., p. xix.
50. RalfWeberandAnthonyDubovsky,"Housefor an Ancestor:Introduc-
ing Design throughVisions in Clay,"JAE47/3 (Feb. 1994), p. 170.
51. Ibid., p. 171.
52. Ibid., p. 173.
53. Ibid.
54. Bhabha,"TheThird Space,"p. 208.

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