EDUCATING THE ARCHITECT. A PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO RENOVATE THE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT DESIGN TEACHING

The University across 20th century has been suffering some changes that conduced to the formation of technical specialists in a more or less narrow segment of the human knowledge. The necessities of a very specialised and pragmatic society, that promotes the maximum efficacy among the professionals, is weakening the general knowledge of its members and, consequently, cutting off all the cultural aspects that do not produce benefits in a short term. This tendency is particularly strong within Architecture teaching.

This specialization is in opposition to the actually increasingly free and accessible information, where the added value is found in providing students with the capacity for analysis and creative thinking. The mere transmission of data or specific information quickly loses value confronted with the establishment of criteria that allow selecting among all available the most appropriate of those data. How can we focus at the same time on the most specific tasks and give the student the broader perspective of knowledge analysis? Now more than ever it is appropriate to recover the distinction between information, knowledge and wisdom.

The essay recovers the thoughts on Education of two philosophers, Bertrand Russell and Hans-Georg Gadamer, to apply them into the specific field of Architecture for promoting the formation of professionals with a global vision of knowledge prepared to give full response to our changing society.