Вічне і плинне в освіті архітектора

Abstract

університетська освіта; майстер; синтез теоретичної та практичної освіти; абстрактні та реальні завдання.

The question “How to teach and how to study architecture?” has been appearing since the beginning of architecture existence. How to carry out an educational process in such a way that having passed all of its stages the student would keep loving his occupation and at the same time was ready to solve real everyday tasks? How to prepare an architect so, depending on the situation, he was both a pragmatist and an artist who can propose modern solutions which have not been presented to the society before? In order to answer certain questions, it is necessary to define the ways in which the architects have been getting an education until today. A statement, saying that classical university education has been outdated for a long time can be frequently heard nowadays. A future architect can get a lot more benefit by learning from a professional directly; the more popular a professional is, the better he can prepare his apprentice, having created his own school and style. This question is not new at all. It has been arising in different periods since the times classical university education exists in opposition to it. However, it is not new from the point of view of history as well, since workshop education existed in Middle Ages as well as Renaissance times and later. Its problem is that an apprentice, who from the very beginning is under strong influence of a great master may never come from under it, having stayed in his shadow. At the same time, he is likely not to able to make independent decisions. The student will be able to work on high quality level only on those issues which he touched upon under the supervision of his teacher. All the others will stay unknown to him. While studying at university a student moves from one department to another one, from one teacher to another one, gaining proficiency in a lot of subjects as well as solving various set tasks. As a result, an architect who has got classical education is ready not only to answer a big amount of various questions but also work in related fields, such as landscape or graphic design, furniture and interior design, film industry, museology and others. The drawback of such education type is quite a big extent of generalization and working up the abstract, quite frequently cut off from real life tasks. All of this does not make it possible for a student to create his own style in the process of studying. For this reason, after university graduation, there has always been a three-year practical professional training in a private or public architecture bureau. Only after it the education was considered to be finished. In fact, after getting classical education in an educational institution rich people used to travel around the world where they would get acquainted with activities of various, famous at that time architects. Only having acquainted themselves with a certain number of professionals in their field, they could form their own style and vision. The question of being limited by one architect or one architect bureau was never raised. Therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century a famous architect Frederick Kiesler, in the search of origins of avant-garde art and architecture, acquainted himself with an activity of Adolf Loos, group “Style”, a director Dudley Murphy, a poet-Dadaist Tristan Tzara, artists Fernand Léger and Marcel Duchamp. Nowadays, when our cities are being filled with replicas of foreign architectural objects, which do not take into account either local cultural traditions or environment where they are located, the question of professional education and search of its new methods is as relevant as never before. It is necessary to return to education integrity, when after gaining various general knowledge a student can continue studying by training at architecture firm as a young professional. A synthesis of theoretical and practical education has to be kept, however, the order of its obtaining plays a significant role for preserving the individuality of every future architect.