Pedagogy and Place

Although the show's subtitle makes it clear that the exhibition marks a major milestone at the YSoA and celebrates the achievements of its students, faculty and leadership, the title "Pedagogy and Place" shifts the emphasis to the spaces of learning, be they at Yale or at other schools around the world. In fact the exhibition is split into two halves: "100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale" and "The Architecture of Architecture Schools," with the former focusing on the school's history and ouput and the latter presenting analyses of more than thirty schools of architecture outside of New Haven. I was particularly interested in the analyses (see "Spaces for Learning," a 2013 feature where I looked at ten schools of architecture and their buildings, including Paul Rudolph's 1963 masterpiece at Yale), which presents photographs, drawings and histories that were assembled by students of Stern's Pedagogy and Place seminar.

Stern and fellow curator Jimmy Stamp put "100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale" in the center of the exhibition space, therefore lending it more importance over the other half of the exhibition. The 100-year history of the YSoA and its output is split into eight sections that coincide with the chairmen or deans that led the school as well as major movements within architecture. It starts with "An American Beaux-Arts," which covers the years 1916 to 1947, when the architecture department was part of the School of Fine Arts and therefore taught alongside painting and sculpture, and ends with "Rebuilding and Renewal," which covers Stern's tenure since 1998. In between are sections that include Rudolph's "Time of Heroics," which saw the construction of the building that now carries his name, the "Architecture or Revolution" period of Charles Moore and Fred Koetter's shift to "Architecture and Urbanism" in the early 1990s.

An important point made by Stern and Stamp during a media tour of "Pedagogy and Place" last week was tht all leaders of the YSoA have maintained practices during their tenures. This fact reinforces the importance of architectural practice as well as the notion that practicing architects should give back to young and aspiring architects through education. Further, many of the former chairmen and deans remained active at the school as adjunct faculty after they stepped down, something Stern will do come June 2016 when Deborah Berke takes over as the first woman to lead the YSoA. Though not unique to Yale, the benefits of employing practicing architects as deans is obvious and worth articulating.

Another important point the curators mentioned during the tour was the lack of a stylistic ideology at Yale. Although the eight sections of the school correspond with modernism, brutalism, postmodernism and other styles, the work that accompanies each section is diverse. To cite one example, Eero Saarinen's drawings in the Beaux-Arts section clearly depart from the neoclassicism oftened associated with that way of teaching. This diversity lends a good deal of surprise and discovery to one's journey through the exhibition's 100 years.

Much of this surprise and discovery comes in finding projects that architects carried out when they were students (from Eero Saarinen's numerous designs from the early 1930s to projects by Marion Weiss of Weiss/Manfredi and Claire Weisz of WXY) and the artifacts related to the school's leaders and faculty (magazine clippings on Paul Rudolph and Charles Moore stand out). Beyond the enjoyment of taking in the drawings and other images on display, the exhibition is a strong argument, even in our digital age, for a well-maintained archive at all schools of architecture. It's obvious that collecting the materials for "Pedagogy and Place" and the book of the same name that will follow in April 2016 was not easy. Hopefully the effort will spur some of the 30-odd other schools of architecture to pay attention to their archives so they can celebrate the accomplisments of their students and faculty at some point in the future.