Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
There can be little argument that the design jury features as a key symbolic event in the education
of the architect.1 However, while the centrality of the design jury as a site for learning disciplinary
skills, beliefs, and values is now widely acknowledged, there continues to be considerable
disagreement about what is learnt and how. While critical pedagogues argue that the design
jury is a critic-centered ritual that coerces students into conforming to hegemonic notions of
professional identity, the more commonly held conception is that the jury is a student-centered
event that supports students in the construction of their own architectural identities.2 This article,
inspired by Michel Foucault’s studies of relationship between power and the formation of the
modern self, reports on the findings of a year-long ethnographic study carried out in one British
school of architecture.3 The research sought to unravel the complexities of the design jury as a site
of dichotomous power relations, and the findings bring into question the efficacy of the design
jury as a ritual that supports useful learning. The article concludes by proposing that the design
jury be replaced by a new set of pedagogic events that are carefully constructed to support
student learning.
Researching the Design Jury numerous commentators from Reyner Banham to dred students, offered both undergraduate and
Although Michel Foucault’s writings did not focus Jeremy Till have pointed out, architectural educa- postgraduate programs within which design formed
on education in any detail, he repeatedly men- tion is a bit like a ‘‘black box’’ in so far as students the integrating curriculum ‘‘core.’’ The school also
tioned educational institutions as sites par excel- enter as laypersons and exit as architects, but what operated a lively design atelier system that resulted
lence for the creation of the modern subject. As happens within the black box is little understood. in students being exposed to a highly diverse range
some of the new nineteenth-century institutions of Unraveling all the mysteries of the black box was of architectural paradigms. The design jury
power, Foucault inferred that schools, colleges, and beyond the scope of this study.4 However, the was used throughout the school for formative
universities employed the generic ‘‘microtechnolo- design jury, a key pedagogic event in architectural feedback at the end of every design project
gies of power’’ (‘‘surveillance,’’ ‘‘normalization,’’ education, seemed to offer an anthropological and often involved external critics, whereas
and ‘‘examination’’) to transform subjects from one window into the black box that might reveal at least summative assessment was carried out through
state to another. By extension, it seems entirely some of its secrets. portfolio examination at the end of each academic
plausible to conceive of architectural education as Any research project that hopes to provide year. Thus, the design jury figured as a key
a set of contingencies: regulations, spatial organi- a detailed and nuanced picture of real events has to pedagogic event in the school, and
zations, pedagogic encounters, etc., that work on focus on a small sample. In this case, the researcher students experienced the event repeatedly
students over a period of time to socialize and looked at design juries in one British school of throughout their five years of full-time
acculturate them into ‘‘architects.’’ However, as architecture. The school, housing about five hun- architectural education.5
23 WEBSTER
The Performance of Power/Authority motivate, or help the reflective learning process of how did the students respond to the jury ritual and
Although the notion of the critic as ‘‘hegemonic the students concerned.15 Only three out of the the actions of the critics? There was little doubt
overlord’’ that is present in some of the writings nine critics observed explicitly supported very weak from observing and talking to students in different
associated with Critical Pedagogy is clearly over- students through diagnostic questioning, the sug- year groups that, despite the powerful prevailing
simplistic, it does not mean that this model of gestion of tangible remedies, and encouragement. rhetoric in the school that extolled the virtues of
action did not exist. Indeed, the researcher often These caring critics tended to be academics who the design jury as an event for reflection and
found a startling schism between the official, or had spent time studying how students learn and transformative learning, the asymmetry of power
declared, intentions of the critics and their who were committed to supporting all students in constructed by the design jury ritual resulted in the
actions.12 While the critics, without exception, their learning. This was contrasted to other aca- student perception of the design jury as primarily
insisted that their role was to support student demics and invited practitioner critics who were ‘‘judgmental.’’17 Furthermore, it was this under-
learning through a reflective dialogue, thus helping happy to declare in the postjury interviews that standing that informed the tactics they adopted
students to develop their own notion of architec- their primary interest was in taking part in when preparing and presenting their work. Thus,
ture within the accepted bounds of the discipline conversations about design and the nature of through repeated design jury experiences, students
rather than to judge or direct students, the evi- architecture. For these critics, their unofficial seemed to develop tactics that they believed would
dence provided by the observations suggested the view was that ‘‘weak students were students guarantee them the best outcome possible, which
reverse was generally true.13 Yet, critics were not who should not be studying architecture sometimes meant, as one student exclaimed,
entirely consistent either in the way they exercised at all.’’ merely ‘‘not getting killed.’’ In effect, students were
their symbolic power or in the scope of their con- Thus, while the oft-mentioned characteriza- found to develop a type of ‘‘ritual mastery,’’ which
cern. For instance, almost without exception, critics tion of the critic as a power-wielding egocentric, involved first, developing an understanding of the
were observed suppressing their symbolic power eager for personal display and personal gratifica- ritual norms and practices, through a mixture of
when reviewing the work of the best students, tion, and intent on the coercion of student toward instruction and observation, and then acting
those who already possessed an architectural their personal notion of professional identity, was accordingly. These practices included the prejury
identity or ‘‘feeling for the game’’ that included not consistently true, it was worrying that most norms of long days and nights preparing special
particular constructions of knowledge, skills, critics did conform to this model at least some of drawings and models, presenting designs to the
deportment, linguistic and graphic acuity, lan- the time (particularly in relation to reviewing critics in the accepted manner, and even unwinding
guage, demeanor, deference, and taste.14 These the work of the weaker students). It was also with the critics in the pub after the jury. Obviously,
students were treated by the critics as colleagues or worrying that the model of hegemonic overlord the students studied displayed varying degrees of
coresearchers, and they spent considerable time was more prevalent than that of the caring compliance, for instance, some students certainly
and energy working with the students’ ideas with pedagogue.16 worked harder than others in the period before
a view to developing a closer alignment between juries; however, there was little doubt that through
the design ‘‘idea’’ and its ‘‘representation.’’ In stark The Experience and repetition, students progressively embodied many
contrast, many critics were seen to exercise their Negotiation of Power of the accepted norms of an architectural identity
symbolic power with full force when reviewing the Thus far, it has been suggested that the design including hard work, disciplinary commitment,
work of the least able students. In these cases, juries observed, produced, and objectified a power competition, and communal solidarity.
critics interrupted student presentations, used differential between the student and the critic If the research findings suggested that stu-
harsh, dismissive language such as ‘‘wrong,’’ merely through their participation in a set of for- dents accepted the nondiscursive practices of the
‘‘bad,’’ ‘‘rubbish,’’ ‘‘incompetent,’’ and were highly malized procedures. It has also been suggested that jury process and, by extension, the norms they
directive both verbally and somatically. In one case, critics exercised the symbolic power, or authority, inculcated as legitimate, then it might be reason-
a critic was observed ‘‘correcting’’ the drawings of bestowed on them in a number of different ways, able to assume that they would also accept the
a third-year student with a red pen. Clearly, in these from coercion through to nurturing, depending on legitimacy of the critics’ comments whatever their
cases, the actions of the critics were primarily their ability or motivation to support student form or content. Further, it might be expected,
judgmental and were unlikely to empower, learning at the various levels of student ability. But as Critical Pedagogy would suggest, that the
25 WEBSTER
the way they chose to reconstruct their individual studio promotes functional knowledge and reflec- implemented in the host institution in 2006–2007,
identities was, in reality, conceptually and materially tive intelligence and also that students are more and subsequently the outcomes will be recorded,
constrained by the identity (the curriculum, rules, likely to learn in environments that are nonjudg- evaluated, and disseminated.
regulations, rituals, spatial configurations, constit- mental, playful, cooperative, convivial, and pur- Although the introduction of new rituals sug-
uencies, values, and beliefs) of the school of poseful.22 We also know that learning outcomes, gests the creation of a new, more supportive, col-
architecture. Further, the fact that students want to teaching, and assessment must align if students are laborative, and dialogical learning environment, we
become architects provides an overarching incen- to learn what we intend.23 So, once the assumption must remind ourselves that this promise will only
tive for students to choose to acquire, or in some that there will be a design jury at the end of every become a reality if experts, design tutors, and critics
cases learn to imitate, the notions of architectural design project is rejected, it becomes possible to of various kinds become more reflexive about the way
identity that are promoted by their teachers, critics, devise a variety of events that occur at different they exercise their (inevitable) symbolic power over
and school. stages of a project that are designed to support students. Only when experts begin to see themselves
explicit aspects of student learning. When design as colearners engaged in a collective project to con-
tutors and students from the host institution were tinually question and reconstruct architectural dis-
Conclusions asked to explore this idea, they had no problem course, rather than as prophets whose role is to
The reader might recognize something of their own devising a whole range of new events including: convert students into disciples, will architectural
experiences of juries in the descriptions above. education become truly student centered.
Certainly, both the form of the design jury ritual and d Exhibitions that celebrate the end of projects and
many of the student experiences quoted parallel, disseminate the results to a variety of audiences
those described in other contemporary reports, (enhances collaborative working, presentation, Notes
suggesting that the findings are not unusual or and communication skills). 1. Research suggests that design juries in the United States, Australia,
unique.20 There is now a bourgeoning literature that d Special Tutorial Days, where relevant experts, and Britain demonstrate similar tendencies. See Kathryn Anthony,
Design Juries on Trial: The Renaissance of the Design Studio (New York:
suggests that the asymmetrical construction of clients, technical experts, practitioners, clients,
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991); Gary Stevens, ‘‘Struggle in the Studio: A
power created by the jury ritual encourages stu- etc., are invited to give individual or small group Bourdivin Look at Architectural Pedagogy,’’ Journal of Architectural
dents to adopt surface tactics that are likely to tutorials (enhances functional knowledge, critical Education 49, no. 2 (November 1995): 105–22; and Hanna Vowles, ‘‘The
result in ‘‘a good judgment’’ (hiding their weak- reflection, and communications skills). Crit as Ritualized Legitimization Procedure in Architectural Education,’’ in
David Nicol and Simon Pilling, eds., Changing Architectural Education
nesses and playing to their strengths, pandering to d Peer Reviews in small groups using assessment-
(London: E. and F. N. Spon, 2000), pp. 259–64.
the critics’ taste, etc.) and positively deter them explicit criteria and levels of achievement at inter- 2. This dichotomous understanding of the design jury is reported in
from presenting their authentic architectural ideas vals throughout a design project (enhances critical Kathryn Anthony, Design Juries on Trial: The Renaissance of the
reflection). Design Studio; Diana Cuff, Architecture: The Story of Practice
and understanding for reflection with expert others.
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 122–26; Gary Stevens, The
Yet, paradoxically, the design jury continues to be d Self-evaluation exercises that ask the students to Favored Circle (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp. 187–204, and
used in a relatively consistent form throughout the assess their own work against explicit criteria and Helena Webster, ‘‘The Architectural Review: Ritual, Acculturation
world. The design jury appears to be architectural levels of achievement before submitting their and Reproduction in Architectural Education,’’ Arts and Humanities in
Higher Education 4, no. 3 (2005): 265–82.
education’s sacred cow. So, what is to be done? If, design portfolio for assessment (enhances critical
3. The main inspiration for this article was Michel Foucault’s Discipline
as the research suggests, the sacred cow is termi- self-reflection and self-management). and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan (Harmondsworth,
nally sick then perhaps there is an opportunity to d Post-Portfolio Assessment Tutorials where design England: Penguin, 1991).
reritualize and reinvigorate architectural education tutors provide verbal feedback on individual stu- 4. See Reyner Banham, A Critic Writes (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1996), pp. 292–99; Jeremy Till, ‘‘Lost Judgement,’’ European
rather than to prescribe medication, as others have dent performance (enhances critical reflection). Association for Architectural Education Transactions of Architectural
suggested.21 Certainly, educators now have the Education 26 (2005): 164–81.
tools to rethink the design jury; they know more While this list is not exhaustive, it provides 5. In England the standard pattern for architectural education is
a three-year undergraduate degree followed by a year in architectural
about professional knowledge, how students learn, several ideas for reritualizing the design studio so
practice, a further two years in graduate education, a further
and what conditions support student learning. In that that it more explicitly supports relevant year in architectural practice, and then a professional registration
architectural education, we know that the design student learning.24 Several of these ideas will be examination.
27 WEBSTER