Learning has long been at the core of philosophical inquiry. The birth of the nation state brought the attention of politicians, scientists, architects, historians, educators, designers, and administrators alike to questions of education. As past centuries have shown, when pedagogical ideals change, so too do their forms. From frontal teaching to rows of tables and chairs, roundtables, open-air schools, and the technology-driven dissolution of the schoolhouse, the architectures of education make ideologies tangible.

Schools are inherently ideological institutions. They are responsible for shaping one’s conception, understanding, and practice of what Louis Althusser called the “social whole.” And like other ideological apparatuses, the classroom, the book, and the school are intermediaries in a chain of social reproduction. Education has always been a factory of subjecthood. As such, it is a lens to reflect on what it is produced by, and speculate about what is produced.

Architectures of Education is a collaboration between Nottingham Contemporary, Kingston University, and e-flux Architecture, and a cross-publication with The Contemporary Journal.