2. Omit or shorten the courses in certain subjects and add certain other subjects.
3. Inculcate by actual experience a better knowledge of architectural practice and of building practice.
4. Make a decided effort to stimulate the creative and not the imitative instinct of the student.
5. Lengthen the course for a degree in architecture to five years.
1. Correlation. To the student in architecture, and to the student in liberal arts as well, the subjects of the curriculum are separate and distinct— gems of different water and of various colors, if you please, which he is to assort and string into a beautiful harmony or odd-shaped pieces of a picture puzzle, which, if he can find time to fit them together in the strenuous battle of life, will surely result in a beautiful, harmonious and complete ensemble. Of the aesthetic subjects, Architectural Design is rightly the most important, requiring in a typical course 1555 hours of a total of 5145. In the ordinary course this subject is correlated only with Shades and Shadows, Water Color, and, to a small extent, with Perspective. It ought, in our opinion, to have in addition close union with Construction, Specifications and Ornament. The subject of Architectural History, perhaps the second in importance to that of Architectural Design, should go hand in hand with the History of Civilization, the History of Sculpture and Painting, Modeling and Ornament. The course should be arranged so that contemporary epochs in these varied courses are studied simultaneously, and, in general, in regard to all of the courses in the curriculum their intimate relationship to each other and to subsequent office practice should be taken advantage of wherever possible.
2. Curriculum. Architectural Design, pointed out above as the most important subject in the course, should maintain its supremacy, but should undergo revolutionary changes in the direction of correlation and modernization. The Beaux Arts method of presentation at present in vogue has been practically unchanged since the time of Napoleon, and its modus operandi need not be here described.
We suggest that the student should begin the study of Architectural Design in the second year. Instead of drawing minutely and in ink, mathematically casting the shadows, and painstakingly rendering the elevation with graded washes, he should draw at as large a scale as possible with pencil, sketching on tracing paper and consulting the library, as at present. Every drawing should be annotated, showing the principal materials, and should be figured in its principal dimensions. In connection with each design, besides plan, elevation.
and section, a large size detail or section (if possible, full size) should be made of some important feature, or of some bit of ornament, and a sketch in perspective be made of the ensemble. The student, at least once during the term, should publicly explain and defend his project either before the jury or his classmates. This procedure should be followed in the second, third and fourth years, the problems becoming larger and more complicated as the student progresses from year to year. By this means we believe a better correlation could be obtained between the aesthetic, practical and social functions, and a sense of scale and a knowledge of material so necessary to rational design be obtained early in the course. The large size details and the perspective sketch would acquaint the student with the real function and form of mouldings and a conception of the design in three dimensions.
The last term of the fourth year should be devoted to the thesis, which should consist of working drawings and specifications of a small building complete in all details, including plumbing, heating and ventilation.
At the end of the fourth year the student should be able to go forth and qualify as a competent draughtsman, and, if he so elects to do, he should be given a certificate to that effect.
For the man who elects to remain for the fifth year and receive a diploma and his degree as an architect, he would find his last year taken up with the design of large theoretical projects, which would be elaborately rendered and presented without the notations, figures and details characterizing his earlier studies.
A great defect in the present system of education is the idea that the orders and the various motives appertaining to the historic styles furnish to the architect a stock in trade, or a bag of tricks which he may use at random, and to the use of which he is limited. In some schools, particularly in the East, originality and creative design are frowned upon and discouraged, and the student is told that these may be developed in actual practice.
The instinct of creation may be cultivated in two ways—first, by the method of teaching Architectural Design, and second, by a proper method of studying ornament. Architectural History should be taught, as its name implies, as History, and this should include all exercises in drawing the orders. The course should begin in the freshman year and continue through four years, the last year being devoted to the study of the History of Architecture in America. It should go hand in hand with the course in the History of Civilization, and careful drawings should be made showing the varying manifestations of architecture as influenced by climate, materials, society and history. The student
3. Inculcate by actual experience a better knowledge of architectural practice and of building practice.
4. Make a decided effort to stimulate the creative and not the imitative instinct of the student.
5. Lengthen the course for a degree in architecture to five years.
1. Correlation. To the student in architecture, and to the student in liberal arts as well, the subjects of the curriculum are separate and distinct— gems of different water and of various colors, if you please, which he is to assort and string into a beautiful harmony or odd-shaped pieces of a picture puzzle, which, if he can find time to fit them together in the strenuous battle of life, will surely result in a beautiful, harmonious and complete ensemble. Of the aesthetic subjects, Architectural Design is rightly the most important, requiring in a typical course 1555 hours of a total of 5145. In the ordinary course this subject is correlated only with Shades and Shadows, Water Color, and, to a small extent, with Perspective. It ought, in our opinion, to have in addition close union with Construction, Specifications and Ornament. The subject of Architectural History, perhaps the second in importance to that of Architectural Design, should go hand in hand with the History of Civilization, the History of Sculpture and Painting, Modeling and Ornament. The course should be arranged so that contemporary epochs in these varied courses are studied simultaneously, and, in general, in regard to all of the courses in the curriculum their intimate relationship to each other and to subsequent office practice should be taken advantage of wherever possible.
2. Curriculum. Architectural Design, pointed out above as the most important subject in the course, should maintain its supremacy, but should undergo revolutionary changes in the direction of correlation and modernization. The Beaux Arts method of presentation at present in vogue has been practically unchanged since the time of Napoleon, and its modus operandi need not be here described.
We suggest that the student should begin the study of Architectural Design in the second year. Instead of drawing minutely and in ink, mathematically casting the shadows, and painstakingly rendering the elevation with graded washes, he should draw at as large a scale as possible with pencil, sketching on tracing paper and consulting the library, as at present. Every drawing should be annotated, showing the principal materials, and should be figured in its principal dimensions. In connection with each design, besides plan, elevation.
and section, a large size detail or section (if possible, full size) should be made of some important feature, or of some bit of ornament, and a sketch in perspective be made of the ensemble. The student, at least once during the term, should publicly explain and defend his project either before the jury or his classmates. This procedure should be followed in the second, third and fourth years, the problems becoming larger and more complicated as the student progresses from year to year. By this means we believe a better correlation could be obtained between the aesthetic, practical and social functions, and a sense of scale and a knowledge of material so necessary to rational design be obtained early in the course. The large size details and the perspective sketch would acquaint the student with the real function and form of mouldings and a conception of the design in three dimensions.
The last term of the fourth year should be devoted to the thesis, which should consist of working drawings and specifications of a small building complete in all details, including plumbing, heating and ventilation.
At the end of the fourth year the student should be able to go forth and qualify as a competent draughtsman, and, if he so elects to do, he should be given a certificate to that effect.
For the man who elects to remain for the fifth year and receive a diploma and his degree as an architect, he would find his last year taken up with the design of large theoretical projects, which would be elaborately rendered and presented without the notations, figures and details characterizing his earlier studies.
A great defect in the present system of education is the idea that the orders and the various motives appertaining to the historic styles furnish to the architect a stock in trade, or a bag of tricks which he may use at random, and to the use of which he is limited. In some schools, particularly in the East, originality and creative design are frowned upon and discouraged, and the student is told that these may be developed in actual practice.
The instinct of creation may be cultivated in two ways—first, by the method of teaching Architectural Design, and second, by a proper method of studying ornament. Architectural History should be taught, as its name implies, as History, and this should include all exercises in drawing the orders. The course should begin in the freshman year and continue through four years, the last year being devoted to the study of the History of Architecture in America. It should go hand in hand with the course in the History of Civilization, and careful drawings should be made showing the varying manifestations of architecture as influenced by climate, materials, society and history. The student