ARCH5331B Topical Studies in History, Theory and Criticism: History of the Architecture School
Target Students BSSc4, MArch
Course Term 2
Course Type Electives
Teacher Adam Jasper
In a creative discipline, such as architecture, the first gesture of any creative act must be one of centering. The designer must place themselves, at least for a moment, at the centre of the world. This declaration of “I, here, now” is the precursor to complete absorption in the task, which may result in a kind of self-erasure, also temporary. Both gestures require each other. We will enlarge this small, private, creative movement to the historical scale. For the duration of this course, CUHK is the centre of the architectural world: All history leads us to this point, all possibility comes out of it. From this maximalist position, how much can we see? What have we missed? What can we achieve?
This class has three aspects: on the one hand, it addresses the global history of the architecture school, a topic of which no comprehensive history exists. Secondly, it inquires after the general history of architectural education in China, a topic of extraordinary wealth that remains poorly understood outside of the key centres of teaching and learning. And thirdly, we will investigate the specific tradition of architecture education at Chinese University Hong Kong. Where did the School of Architecture come from, how has it evolved, and where is it going?
