“ Through our teaching and public programming, we help students gain a deep knowledge of architecture’s techniques, traditions, methods of inquiry, and modes of production, so that they emerge with the intellectual breadth and acuity to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world that demands agility and innovation. Through both programming and outreach activities, we aim to engage a wider public audience in a dialogue about the role of architecture in society.”
-Syracuse Architecture Mission Statement
I was going back in time. It was a twist on reality that was so highly distorted from the present space in Los Angeles that it was unrecognizable to my eyes. What is this desk? This slanted top that lets my computer slide off, has no space for my Ipod, and doesn’t allow me to put my feet up whist drawing? Florence was one thing. These design sensibilities and this typology of ‘doing things’ was completely distorted and unusual to me. Syracuse was the real time gap.
Last semester I studied in Florence with Syracuse University. The combination of Syracuse, with early modernist goals and mostly tenured professors, and Florence, the capital of the Renaissance, was such a drastic change from the ‘innovative’ University of Southern California and the sprawling lack of control that is Los Angeles. There was something about Florence that you could understand and place in your memory as a system of order with the likelihood of learning from. The Renaissance movement had this rightness about design and art that has never really been replicated, although many have tried. The population that coexists in this medieval city recognize that although great, the cities value and influence lies in its history.
Syracuse on the other hand, seems to be a modern artifact that still breathes and produces designers. Their students are expanding outside upstate New York and their design sensibilities are being brought to the modern world. It could have been the ancient city that just inspired the Florence program’s retrospective attitude, or it could have been the university’s attempt at making a statement to the world. It could also be very possible that Syracuse is drastically different from what I experienced in Florence. The Syracuse students who were studying abroad in the Florence program, probably also felt like they too were taking a trip back to a realm of hand drafting and arcades.
Because the curriculum at Syracuse is heavily based on understanding the cultural atmosphere of many varying places, their students seem to have developed an innate ability to absorb the urbanistic and architectural references of a place. Unlike USC, many of their studios travel all over the country to experience different cultures and the impact it has on the local architecture. This sensitivity to the context could be why, in Florence, many students reverted back to using older materials and quintessential 'Italian' urban principles. After not having the same range of travel as Syracuse, the USC education seems limited in its spectrum of contextual influences.
When I pinned up my final project, I felt amazingly out of place and even irresponsible in my design intentions. My massive 50 foot, cantilevering I-beams seemed to be bordering on excessive and impractical. Even the circulation seemed over sized compared to my overly-logical colleagues. But this is what USC teaches us, have a strong design intention, make it spatially relevant. The major moves that I made in my project were absolutely necessary to convey my idea. But is this right? Do our professors undermine us by telling us that in the real world our clients care about our expensive torquing forms? Is the art of architecture going to be necessary in the built work in 2090? Or are the construction planners of the world going to carve up the remaining land into giant FEMA trailers? The students in my studio in Florence had such nice little spaces with perfect little labels and magnificent handicap ramps that worked perfectly into the egress. They had lovely little landscaped lots where children could stand, a simple mesh screen to shield the sun, and a roof terrace overlooking the park. Their projects were completely practical but there was no concept behind it. Is USC going out of style by actually teaching conceptual design intention these days?
This is not the first time that this question has been discussed in the realm of architectural education. The question actually draws upon the discussion of whether architecture should be more practical or completely conceptual and experimental. Our architecture school is just resurfacing from a more practical education and is trying to push the boundaries. With a cutting-edge Dean and new classes to teach advanced computer programs and theory, our school seems to be moving into the future. Syracuse however, seems to be content with its practical design approach. Could it be that we are actually moving in the opposite direction of the future?
I will admit though that the act of going to another university to learn about something as fragile as design has made me torque my ideas on the necessity of the complete composition. I think that it very important to experience multiple schools of thought within the architecture education. By leaving the USC bubble, I realized that regardless of the prestige of a school, each one is on a gradient scale from tradition to progression. It was only by studying with an (almost) foreign university, that I acquired the knowledge of regional and cultural differences that impact the theoretical teaching of architecture.
So where does USC stand in the huge gradient from insane Zaha shapes, to the cerebral based non-building, to the square-footage maximizers? Maybe our school of thought is fighting the revolution and the Syracuse/Florence tradition is what the architectural education is really headed for. Maybe we will be the school that will be unable to evolve to the recession-proof, environmentally-balanced, carbon neutral, 8-foot ceilings, built surroundings. Maybe we’re so far in our Los Angeles bubble that we can not see our mistakes. Maybe Syracuse has it right. Maybe material saving, no-double-height space-because-it-is-a-waste-of-space thinking is the new trend. After all, it is hard for even architects to justify the need for a brand new community center/city council/media museum when the world is drowning into the sea and there are hurricanes the size of Texas sinking all of the Virgin Islands. Or when materials that could be helping Haitian orphans are rerouted to the newest Gerhy opera house, something should be done.
So choose. Do you want to be the maximal minimalist for the globe’s population, give them their 25’ by 30’ flat and their little composting toilet or do you want to give in to the experimental badass approach and make something that even when the aliens find our broken, beaten planet they will be in awe.
Hopefully we will never have to completely choose
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