With the ongoing stratification of the architectural profession architects have to take a critical position in their contemporary environment, must actively shape it, and create the conditions for our new realities. What kind of profile, then, should the 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? Or a combination of some or all of the above? What practices of this new architectural education institution will generate changes in contemporary society? Can insight into past and present practices of architectural education in Slovenia be used to explore how such education might develop in the future?

edu.arh is an exhibition on practices in architectural education today. It is a project designed for the Museum of Architecture and Design venues.

ROOM 1: WALL

Room 1 is divided by a photo wall featuring selected sequences of the interior of the two buildings housing the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana. The sequences serve to expose the spatial features of the Faculty of Architecture: corridors and rooms, lecture rooms, and the drawing rooms behind the walls and doors. How can a physical building, its constitutive materials and interior spatial arrangement affect the structure and manner of architectural education? And similarly, what should a contemporary educational environment look like? This is one of the three parallel questions put to architectural educators, students, and young alumni of the Faculty of Architecture alike. The continuous stream of statements on the screens represents a global compendium of current and future architectural educational issues. The statements raise questions related to the dynamics of the institution of architectural education, and about the possibilities of its structural, substantive, and spatial reactions to the contemporary realities of today.  

ROOM 2: FIELD

The horizontal field in Room 2 is composed of display panels representing the main part of the Mladi smo in živi (Young and Alive) exhibition, which was organised by the Faculty of Architecture on the occasion of its centennial. The display panels feature a selection of graduation and other projects, arranged according to 1:1, 1:10, 1:100, 1:1000 and 1:10000 scale, by students of the Faculty of Architecture from its establishment until today. This is a showcase archive, organized non-hierarchically according to time and content, and showing the connection between the faculty’s production and its curriculum over the decades. Bars displaying selected quotes by academics float freely above the panels. What does the Faculty of Architecture as an architectural education institution represent today?

ROOM 3: STATIONS

Seven stations of the Room 3 expose seven architectural education practices 

running parallel with the school curriculum. The stations review the Faculty of Architecture’s impact in a wider social context:  Which social, political, and economic factors influenced education practices and developments at the faculty? Which deviations caused the school programme to move away from the so-called vertical seminar? Which impulses triggered experimentation and research processes? Which products at/of the faculty made an impact on the world beyond academia? 

The stations follow each other chronologically, from 1960 to the present. It was Professor Edvard Ravnikar who stimulated the innovative practice of architectural education both inside and outside the school curriculum. Staged continuously one after another, the stations connect otherwise isolated events – the educational reform of the 1960s, the student revolts of the 1970s, the creation of the magazine in the 1980s, the series of conferences in the 1990s, the exhibition in the 2010s, and the current digital platform. Each station produced different conceptual apparatuses that help us re-think architectural education. Which is why the actions and products presented at these stations were relevant not only in the given historical moment but remain so today, as they demonstrate the need to question existing architectural education models. 

The exhibition concludes with possible development sceanrios at the Faculty of Architecture. What is the Faculty of Architecture?

As a flexible and dynamic institution, the Faculty of Architecture is open to changes to its structure and mode of operation.   

It is an institution that actively responds to the dilemmas of the contemporary environment and society, and contributes to knowledge production and the development of the architectural discipline. 

It is an institution that educates new architects to better understand social, political, technological, and material agents, which will ultimately help shape our built and unbuilt environment. 

It is an institution that fosters innovative practices in research and design and is open to pedagogical experimentation that transcends ideological, geographical, and disciplinary boundaries. 

It is an institution that encourages the creation and development of new practices in architectural education.

Colophon

Chief Curator: Boštjan Vuga

Executive Curator: Danica Sretenović

Advising Curator: Maja Vardjan

Visual Identity and Exhibition Design: Ansambel

Researchers: Tomaž Štoka, Bogo Zupančič

Project Coordinators: Urška Špeh, Tomaž Štoka

Photographs (Room 1): Klemen Ilovar

Video Postproduction (Room 1): Alja Lucian, Luka Orel

Panels (Room 2): Rok Žnidaršič, Katarina Čakš with Zala Zia Lenárdič, Petra Lukovac, Astrid Magajna

Public Relations: Maša Špiler

Marketing: Nataša Celec

Translations and Proofreading: Jeff Bickert, Darja Horvatič, Katja Paladin

Project Supervision: Vasa J. Perović, Faculty of Architecture, Maja Vardjan, MAO

Technical Realisation: Matjaž Rozina, Tadej Golob

Special Thanks: Janez Lajovic, Majda Kregar, Janez Koželj, Jurij Kobe, Sonja Ana Hoyer, Andrej Hrausky, Aleš Vodpivec, Peter Gabrijelčič, Majda Širca, Martin Ravnikar, Peter Skalar, Nives Marvin, Miha Dešman

Partner institutions: 

Museum of Architecture and Design, director: Matevž Čelik 

Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, dean: Matej Blenkuš

MAO program is supported by: Miistry of Culture Slovenia

Sponsors: Xella porobeton, Baumit, Wienerberger, Saint-Gobain, Geberit.

Media sponsors: Mladina, Oris, TAM-TAM