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September 28, 2007|Volume 36, Number 4


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Students in the School of Architecture's advanced studios prepared for their work overseas by studying in great detail the sites for which they will be creating designs in Saqqara, Egypt; Istanbul, Turkey; Shanghai, China; Rome, Italy; and London, England.



Students fan out overseas
for architecture studios

The world has become a classroom — literally — for students at the Yale School of Architecture, who have fanned out across the globe, from Shanghai to Rome, to visit sites they have been studying intensely on campus for weeks.

The field trips are part of School of Architecture advanced studios, a kind of master class led by such architectural notables as Leon Krier, Peter Eisenman, Tod Williams/Billie Tsien and Joshua Prince-Ramus, in which students are charged to plan a project specific to a particular site. All of the third-year master’s degree architecture students are taking part in the overseas venture, as are some students from the school’s two-year program.

The projects, which are not necessarily intended to be built, range from devising a re-development plan for a derelict district in London to creating a “dialogue center” for a Louis Kahn-designed business school in Ahmedabad, India. Though such far-flung sites might seem to have nothing intrinsically in common, they share a pedagogic purpose: to hone the analytic and creative skills of student architects while expanding the breadth of their understanding.

Before beginning their project designs, the students must become completely acquainted with the unique characteristics of the site, from its physical properties, history and scale to the social, political and economic conditions that affect it.

When developing plans for a research center to be located on a landmark funerary complex at Saqqara in Egypt, for example, students need to understand its rich architectural history. Designed around 2650 B.C.E. by the legendary — and by all accounts, first — architect Imhotep for King Djoser, the burial complex is the first construction in stone, contains the first Egyptian pyramid and is the first building on which the architect’s name is inscribed. Imhotep, who was also a physician, scribe and high priest, is credited as the innovator of such architectural details as ribbed columns and capitals that are unique to Egyptian art.

“Saqqara is where all Greek architecture begins,” notes Timothy Newton, a faculty member who provides hands-on instruction for the studio of designer/scholar Massimo Scolari, the William B. and Charlotte Shepherd Davenport Visiting Professor this year.

In addition to planning the research center for this historic site, the students will have to design a chair for the center’s reading room.

Designing a new opera house in Istanbul — the project of the studio taught by Prince-Ramos and Erez Ella, of the innovative design firm REX — challenges students to address the dual identity of the site. The Turkish city was chosen precisely for its contrasting properties, says Frederick Tang, a faculty member who assists in teaching the studio. Straddling two continents and bisected by the Bosphorus River, Istanbul is a “hybrid” of Eastern and Western culture, Christian and Muslim religions and secular and religious politics, notes Tang. The role of opera in a society in the throes of a cultural identity crisis is one of the fundamental issues students will need to address in considering the project, adds Tang.

Student Pierce Reynoldson observes that Prince-Ramos and Ella, the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professors at Yale, are more interested in the process of evaluation than the project the students will eventually propose. Though the development of a new opera house is under consideration by the municipal government of Istanbul, Reynoldson says, once he and his classmates have visited the site, they might conclude that a new opera house shouldn’t be built at all — and still pass the course.

For a decade, urban planner and full-time Yale faculty member Alan Plattus has been taking his advanced studio class to Shanghai, and during that time, the city has experienced explosive growth, largely due to an unprecedented influx of global capital. Addressing the realities of globalization in one of China’s most rapidly developing cities can be particularly valuable to his ­students, says Plattus, who notes that half of the students in his class hold foreign ­passports.

Collaborating for the eighth year with architecture students and faculty from Hong Kong University and Tongji University, Plattus’ advanced studio team will consider a design for a million-square-foot city block in the rapidly changing historic French Concession. A central issue that students will have to consider in proposing a plan for this eclectic district is how to balance local architectural traditions with principles of contemporary design.

“Exploring the site will give us the opportunity to see what’s happening in Shanghai and what might loom in the future of China,” says Plattus.

The EUR quarter, a district on the outskirts of Rome, originally planned as a model city and the site of the 1942 World’s Fair (which never took place), is a possible dueling ground of ideas to be played out by students in the studios of Krier and Eisenman — respectively, the William B. and Charlotte Shepherd Davenport Visiting Professor and the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture. The two men have famously espoused opposing theories of architecture and planning. Their differences in style are illustrated by the fact that, in his written description of the advanced studio, Krier presents the syllabus as a “work menu,” from anti-pasto to dessert, while Eisenman’s course description offers an in-depth examination of part-to-whole relationships, with a digression on the theories of the architect of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida.

Students in both studios will consider how to incorporate the extant structures of the EUR quarter into a design for a new urban development to serve as the southern extension of the ancient city. Their proposals are not necessarily expected to reflect the differing approaches of their master teachers.

The studio that will bring the architects-in-training to London to design a redevelopment plan for a long-abandoned section in London is jointly taught by Sean Griffith, Charles Holland and Sam Jacob of the United Kingdom design firm FAT (Fashion, Architecture, Taste), all of whom are Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professors at Yale, and by Nick Johnson of the development firm Urban Splash, who is an Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Architectural Fellow.

The architects’ instructions to their students regarding the London project sum up the philosophy of the entire advanced studio program:

“We want you to look at all kinds of different things: social, economic, physical, cultural things, and at how these are manifested in architecture. We want you to look at how architecture communicates with its audience and who that audience is. We want you to tell us what you might put there and why. We want you to think hard about what it looks like and who would like it. We want you to tell us who it’s for. All of them.”

By Dorie Baker


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Students fan out overseas for architecture studios

University Church in Yale marks 250 years of tradition and reform

NIH honors scientist for innovative work on microscopes

‘Yale at Carnegie’ series to feature performances by students, faculty

Yale makes dramatic changes in research compliance procedures

Web-based system for effort reporting launched


ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS

Once a ‘musical theater guy,’ writer is now a ‘gadget freak’

Forum to examine ways that New Haven can become a ‘sustainable city’

The allure of fly fishing is explored in museum exhibit

Workshops to explore global issues . . .

World Fellows share in a night of ‘intercultural understanding’

Beinecke show examines the Italian festival book tradition

Center’s events to feature internationally known architects

Issues of spirituality to be explored in exhibit, poetry reading

Scavenger hunt orients new graduate students to the campus and Elm City

United Way Days of Caring brings out volunteers from the Yale community

Campus Notes


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