Christopher Benninger regarded as a legendary figure of Indian and international architecture, had built a great legacy which will keep inspiring generations. Great Expectations: Notes to an Architect, his most recent and final book, published posthumously in October 2024, is a sequel of sorts to his bestselling 2011 title, Letters to a Young Architect, and a philosophical retrospective of his distinguished career. Following is an excerpt from this book. The Chapter is called Note 4- Future of Architectural Education in India: Crisis and Challenge
Ten: We must move away from the blind leading the blind
We are inducting an army of very young, ill-equipped teachers. New teachers are barely out of college, with little knowledge of what a practice is, with no site experience, and no clue of various contractual, technical, legal and ethical issues that professionals handle. The vast majority of our teachers can neither draw an architectural concept, nor write a descriptive sentence about a piece of art they intend to create. They lack even basic knowledge of building technology and construction methods.
Would we have such people teach medicine, or trust them as our doctors? We seem to think that by requiring teachersto complete a PhD they will become knowledgeable, or wise intellectuals. We think that they can learn building systems by osmosis, while studying abstract theories in weak doctoral programmes, having no intellectual content. With a few notable exceptions, PhD guides have never had an original idea or penned a useful teaching text! We are making a mockery out of the doctorate of philosophy, and idiots out of our teachers. It is painful for me to say this, but even more pitiful to watch this happen.
All architects must first work in a professional office for some years, know the practice of architecture, and only then be in a position to share their knowledge as professionals through teaching. They should write statutory professional exams that qualify them to practice as architects. This will certify their knowledge, and their right to be called architects. This must also be the first qualifying hurdle to become an Assistant Professor of Architecture.
Eleven: We must rediscover our history
In my discussions with students and recent graduates I find an amazing gap in their interest, knowledge and understanding of history. Architectural history must be embedded in the study of technology; its evolution and progress; and the major innovations that tempered what we have built and what we will build. Students must know when geopolitical, economic and technological turning points, either inventions or disruptions, took place and how these led to almost inevitable innovations, parallel to scientific evolution and the global power matrix.
A student should know why there is nothing outstanding about a copy of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas, while the original tower in Paris was iconic because of its exploitation of new understandings of steel and its fabrication. They should know that new quantitative techniques allowed more reliable simulation of the forces flowing in structures than had previously existed. Similar knowledge of the great Chola temple complexes, and the Gothic cathedrals would create an architect’s mindset. Students should have a broad historical framework of the technological, political and economic systems that generated building typologies, historical periods and related architectural and urban planning responses in India’s geo-climatic regions over time.
Twelve: We must move from sick buildings and cities to healthy buildings and sustainable cities
The subject of sustainable cities and buildings needs to be integrated into our teaching of mechanical equipment, materials science, landscape design, and into the way we think about buildings. We must see ‘living buildings’ operating; not just still, static and iconic sculpturesque objects on a computer screen. Healthy buildings have fresh air, good sunlight, views to the outside, recycled water systems, energy saving mechanisms, low carbon consumption, maximum natural lighting and ventilation, and minimal solid waste outlets.
The TERI team and many GRIHA experts are working on this and we need to respond with a valid curriculum. Our ideas about sustainability need to include the life-cycle costs of built fabric and the extent to which costs make habitat inaccessible or accessible to people. A sustainable building is also poetic, uplifting, and a statement of hope. There is an indelible link between our concepts of sustainability and the vibrancy of humane habitats.
Published in Abir Pothi
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