Abstract:

We live in a globalized world, this is an indisputable fact. This fact is affecting the professional profiles of many professions and, consequently, the curricular profiles of the studies associated with them. One of the professions that are suffering more alterations in this direction is possibly the Architect. Modifications of the work environment, the complexity of the profession itself with the scope of the normative, technological and production changes, mean both an opening of work frontiers and a need for greater adaptation of future professionals. The average size of architectural firms is varying considerably; a large number of them are becoming bigger and intervening in larger markets, both at European and global level. All this implies remarkable consequences on the profile of the architects required by these companies to be incorporated into their work teams. The mobility of architects has been a key factor in the restructuration of the labour market within the architectural profession as a result of the dysfunctions introduced by the recent international crisis that has particularly affected the construction sector.

All these factors and many others, more local or specific, have a clear impact on the internationalization process of architectural studies. These changes can be gathered into two large groups: the first is the need to internationalize the curriculum profile in the training of architects; the second is the opening of the frontiers in the training process with the increasingly more usual displacement of students outside their country of origin for their formation, and the consequent cultural changes (and exchanges) within the groups of students in the classroom. This paper collects all these aspects, trying to reflect on the challenges, difficulties, opportunities and advantages inherent to the process that is being lived, and it does so based on the real experience of transformation carried out by the studies of Architecture at the Superior School of Technical Education of the University CEU UCH.

Some of the topics to be addressed are: international practices, inside and outside the Erasmus/Leonardo programs; the international meetings or international weeks as a tool of internationalization ‘at home’ of the curriculum of both students and teachers; the process of curricular transformation and the incorporation of the teaching in English as main vehicular language; and the necessary adjustments to deal with the multi-culturalism of students with very different backgrounds, and the need to adjust the curriculum according to the wide-ranging previous formation received in the countries of origin. Always from the perspective of not losing the specificity of the character of the studies of architecture that traditionally has been taught in Spain, that supposes a guarantee of quality recognized at international level.

Keywords:

Architecture, Internationalization, Internships, International Weeks, Multiculturalism.