edu.arh

With the ongoing stratification of the architectural profession, architects must take a critical position in their contemporary environment, actively shape it, and create the conditions for our new realities. What kind of profile should a future architect have? What would an institution charged with educating such an architect look like? Should it be a matrix, a guerrilla action, a forum, an ex-cathedra, a laboratory, or an ecosystem? What practices by this new architectural education institution will generate changes in contemporary society?

Created by the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana to mark the centennial of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Architecture, the exhibition questions the practices in architectural education today. Curated by the architect and professor Boštjan Vuga and the architect and journalist Danica Sretenović, edu.arh aims to generate reflection on the dynamics of the architectural education institution and on opportunities for its structural, material, and spatial reaction to contemporary social reality.

The exhibition is a project designed specifically for the MAO exhibition venue. This site-specific installation spreads across three rooms, dubbed Wall, Field, and Stations. The introductory part features the spatial characteristics of the Faculty of Architecture, its physical reality interspersed with quotes from numerous internationally recognized academics working in educational institutions all over the world, among them Winka Dubbeldam, Mark Lee, Nader Tehrani, Wilfried Wang, Farshid Moussavi, Odile Decq, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jacob van Rijs, Marina Otero Verzier, and others. Forming a dialogue with Faculty of Architecture students and alumni, they provide answers to the questions about the profile of a future architect, the relationship between practice and education, and the vision for a future architectural education building.

Both in Slovenia and elsewhere in the world, alternative practices and spinoffs have appeared parallel to institutional architectural education ever since its beginning, displaying a different potential for the concept and development of architectural education. The exhibition is centered around seven stations representing seven architectural education practices from 1960 to the present. Staged continuously one after another, they present the continuity between the educational reform of the 1960s (Course B), the student revolts of the 1970s (Room 25), the creation of the magazine in the 1980s (AB / Architect’s Bulletin), the series of conferences in the 1990s (PIDA), the exhibition production process at the beginning of the new millennium (BIO), and the current digital platform (Future Architecture). Each station produced different architectural education and knowledge production apparatuses that differed in form and content from the approved curriculum. This is why the actions and products presented at these stations were relevant not only at the given historical moment but remain so today, because they demonstrate the need to question existing architectural education models.

The exhibition explores the involvement of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Architecture in general social developments and presents possible scenarios for the future development of architectural education. It can be viewed online or live at the Museum of Architecture in Ljubljana.

Press inquiries
Maša Špiler, masa.spiler@mao.si