About Yale School of Architecture: An Interview with Robert A. M. Stern

This article appeared in Dialogue, April 2000, No. 35

MF  You said a few years ago that "I like architecture schools but I frequently hate what they do to students." Can you elaborate on your dislikes? And now that you are the Dean of Yale School of Architecture, what is the aim of your School?

RAMS  A university is about open questions and not about definitive answers. I am critical of many architecture schools I call them academies - which tend to foster a certain "true" way. Some architecture schools are so insistent about one mode of aesthetic expression and one way of doing architecture that they restrain the students by straight jacketing them in ideologies. They are teaching systems of design, not ways to think problems through. They give students "a way" of doing architecture which often makes the students very rigid and unable to perform as architects in the real and ever-evolving world afterwards. Also, what you think architecture is when you are twenty-five is not the same as when your are more mature and begin to accomplish things, say at forty-five. So we need to present architecture as a way of thinking and to address issues of expression-of style, if you will, as an open debate between many modes - from the very individualistic and personal represented by someone like Frank Gehry, to others that are more grounded in tradition, whether it is the classical tradition represented by Demetri Porphyrios or that of the modern represented by Colin Wilson.

At Yale, the "debate" is focused on the advanced studios where architects representing diverse, even extreme, points of view, work directly with students. Each studio has its own program, its own idea, according to the direction of the master. We offer studios as unique opportunities for students to work with the very best talents — the heroes of the day, many of them true masters, others still finding their way. Often they discover that the heroes have feet of clay, that the heroes aren't quite what they thought they were, and that what you see in the magazines isn't always a true portrayal of what architecture is. At Yale you are exposed to these architects not just on a lecture platform for an evening of canned illustrated talk about their work, but in the studio, at the restaurant, and in the bar. You also see these architects interact with each other. They sit on each other's reviews; they debate ideas in the hallways.

Architecture is not conceptual; it is "real." We believe in architecture as the art of building. Since 1967, Yale's first-year students have competed individually and then in teams to design a small building which they then construct. The challenge is to make art out of the everyday. In the last eight years the building project has been a modest house that gets sold to a modest family in a modest neighborhood in New Haven. Of course, not only do the students build the house with their own labor but they also get to see the house occupied. This is healthy and very real. The thrust of too many architecture schools is to take the design task and disassociate it from the building task, not to mention everyday life. We believe that architecture is about shaping the environment, it is about the art of the monument and the art of the everyday. We are also very committed to educating people to take the leadership role in the profession. Of all the schools I know, Yale has a really remarkable record of training and educating leaders architects who build not just for the sake of building, but for the sake of carrying on the widest purposes of architecture as responsible and responsive public art.

MF  You mentioned the Building Project course which was initiated when Charles Moore became Dean. As the new Dean, what sort of changes have you made to the curriculum?

RAMS  We have strengthened and clarified the core in the area of technology, history and theory, and streamlined the requirements so the students have more chances to take electives. Electives can be chosen from wide offerings in the school in history, theory, urbanism, technology. But Yale students can also take elective courses anywhere in the university. They don't have to confine their learning to the architecture school. So if you would like to take a studio course in art or a class in Shakespeare, you are free to do so. We want educated, thinking, and knowledgeable architects who are as smart and as sophisticated or maybe even more so than their clients. We constantly tinker with the curriculum, but that's not the issue. You need to have a curriculum, but it is the people who implement the curriculum - the teachers -who really make the difference. This is true in the classroom and in the studio where I am committed to having the liveliest, most diverse representations of what architecture is and can be. Yale will not lock itself into an "ism" or a "way".

When I arrived as Dean, the first thing I did was to invite experienced architect-teachers like Philip Johnson, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Julie Eizenberg to become visiting critics because knew they represented strong points of view that complemented and contrasted with our own faculty teaching advanced studios: Turner Brooks, Deborah Berke, Steven Harris, Judy DiMaio and Peggy Deamer. All of these studio masters are actively involved in the practice of architecture: it's the balance that counts — the balance between experience and new ideas. I intend to mix it up, to continually stir the pot. Zaha Hadid is now giving a studio, so is Greg Lynn and Sandy Wilson. Last term, it was Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Demetri Porphyrios and Cesar Pelli. The studio experience is a unique and very serious business. I want students to work with architects who are at the peak of their form or just about to go over the top.

MF  You are a unique model, an architect as well as a historian. What are your thoughts on the teaching of history and theory and their relationship to the studio? The famous professor Vincent Scully is retired now. Is history being taught differently?

RAMS  Though he is "officially" retired, we are very fortunate that Vincent Scully is still teaching one semester a year, still giving his famous lecture course and seminars. The students rightly regard it as a great privilege to be able to work with Professor Scully.

I believe history and theory are related but different. Each is very important. One without the other is not enough. History records and interprets what went on before; theory offers models for proceeding with the task of design that lays before us today. Today, many theories seem to be extra-architectural. Many theory-based programs at other schools appear to cut students off from the real purpose of architecture which is to build, poetically and responsibly and with a sense of respect for the act of building itself. Theories without history are beside the point. Students need to know the history of architecture. They need to know that there are theories — methodologies behind the great monuments of the past as well as the work of the present. The past is not merely a catalog of "top ten" hits. The present isn't the only important moment in the evolution of our architecture. We cannot pretend that only the last thirty or forty years are important. So we must find ways to present and re-present the continuous and evolving and sometimes contradictory tradition of architecture. There is no simple trajectory of experience. Change is the only constant in our modern world. We cannot escape into the future; we need to come to terms with the present and with the tradition of the past and with the tradition of modern architecture itself.

History is not merely about individual monuments; it is essential to understand the history of cities and the urban condition as well. Yale is also very concerned about the urban condition and we are lucky to be in New Haven which is a very interesting city to be in for studying urban issues. Virtually every modern condition of urbanism is evident in New Haven. But architecture is now global in its reach and Yale is committed to an international approach. An important innovation since I've come to Yale is the global reach of our advanced studios. For example, each fall we conduct a studio in conjunction with Hong Kong University and with Tongii University in Shanghai. Our students and those in each of the other two worked independently on the same problem — last Fall imagining the future of a key site along the Suzhou River. Our students visited Hong Kong and Shanghai, and students from Hong Kong came to Yale. Ideas were exchanged with words and designs barriers of misunderstanding fell. We expect to continue this studio for the foreseeable future. In a separate studio, Daniel Libeskind undertook an investigation of the highly contested Tacheles site in Berlin. The studio went to Berlin for a week to see the site, to work with local officials, to experience Berlin's renaissance firsthand under Libeskind's direction. This term students have visited Stockholm with Colin St. John Wilson, London and Switzerland with Zaha Hadid and Los Angeles with Victoria Casasco. We hope to develop a regular program in London and are considering a studio concentrating on Africa, Ours is a global approach. We are not just going to sit in one place and think about another abstractly, we are going to go there. The point is not just travel for the sake of travel but directed, focused travel students and teachers traveling together to see things together and debate the site and buildings, and the local culture, to share the issues of modern architecture and modern life.

MF  The architecture school is part of a great university. In the 70's, Yale was especially famous for its literary theory program with people like Paul de Man. What is your view of the influences and study of the disciplines outside of architecture? The evening lecture series in the past few semesters at Yale consist mainly of architects, architectural historians and some artists. Do you plan to invite people from other departments of the university?

RAMS  The first obligation of an architecture school should be to its own discipline. We reach outside our school in many ways. As I said earlier, students are free to take their elective courses anywhere in the university so they can explore other disciplines that interest them. The public lecture program, dramatically strengthened with twenty or thirty outside lecturers speaking before the entire school each year, brings outside voices from the profession as well as from other disciplines. Architecture is a social art — it does not occur in a vacuum, so we ask critics, artists, environmentalists, sociologists, etc. to share their ideas with us. The school-wide lectures are also intended to challenge architects with ideas from outside our discipline. We are particularly interested in issues of public art and the environment, and in the experimental possibilities of computer-aided fabrication techniques. So we have had such artists as Robert Irwin and Sian Armajani and James Turrell, as well as Sulan Kolotan, Bill Mac Donald and James Glymph lecture and meet with small groups of students in seminars. In 2000-2001 Peggy Deamer, a leading theorist on our faculty who is also an accomplished architect, will conduct a seminar devoted to the "house for the new millennium" in which leading young architects will present their ideas and work followed by a seminar discussion. Theory and practice will be tackled as mutually supportive — as they should be.

MF  This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the journal, Perspecta. There is a symposium on the journal this semester. It is arguably the best student-edited architectural journal. You were once an editor of the magazine. Can you talk briefly about the journal?

RAMS  I am happy to hear you say it is the best. It is also the oldest. It is also the most varied, and it has been a veritable seismograph recording the evolution of architectural culture over the last 50 years. Perspecta varies as the students' interests vary; and, over the years, the students have been remarkably good at identifying what architects and ideas have been important. To edit Perspecta is quite an honor: students compete to be able to edit an issue and once selected they present reports on their progress to the Board. It is all taken pretty seriously. Perspecta generates a lot of interest in the School and adds to the broad culture. Frequently the student editors organize special symposiums just to create materials for Perspecta. They invite people to contribute whom they think have something important to say, or whose work they feel passionately about. They challenge the establishment, and they challenge the banalities of the typical architectural magazines.

MF  What is your view on the teaching and use of the computer at the School?

RAMS  The computer is an amazing tool; it can help liberate whole new areas of thought. It can also distract. I am not interested in computers per se, but what they can do — I am interested in the opportunities and limitations of digital design. Joong-Seek Lee, a recent graduate of the school, directs our programs in digital design. He is continually challenging students to think of the new media in relationship to their work as architects. We are not interested in training animators; we do not want students to become web-page designers. We want to empower architects to do more spectacular work than ever before, but in their own discipline; we are an architecture school. The issue as I see it is not computers but the role of digital media in architectural design. The computer adds immensely to architecture's possibilities as a tool in realizing work, and the various software now available and others inevitably to come open up new possibilities for formal exploration. But it always goes back to individuals — those with talent and a critical intelligence who lead the way. Many advanced studios are laboratories for exploration of the new media. Last year students working with Cecil Balmond of the Ove Arup group reinvented the traditional "nine square" problem — it was an amazing display of high style, of beautiful graphics and erudition. Greg Lynn is here this spring and will return next spring. With Greg, students use advanced software to push the boundaries of form. Zaha Hadid now leads a studio in which the computer is very important, but so are models and drawings, drawings, drawings. Keller Easterling and Ed Mitchell explore digital media in the studio and the classroom, advancing the borders of research. We're as wired as any school and have some fancy equipment for advanced work that most others don't have. But we temper our enthusiasm for the new media with a healthy skepticism. With the computer comes a glut of images and the look and sheen of polished work that often outstrips content; sometimes dazzling imagery can camouflage understanding. We need to take the measure of the glut of images and information architects now have such easy access to. We need to develop new means to use the computer as an interpretive tool — as an aid to design. Nothing however, replaces the creative, critical act of design in which the mind and the eye connect.

MF  What do you see as the relationship between the school and the profession? Often times we hear from the professionals that the students today are not as well prepared as before.

RAMS  They said that students of my generation when we were students — that we couldn't draw and that all Yale students could do was talk. Talk we do at Yale; we debate, we question, we explore. But we also model and draw on paper and on electronic screens. Drawing is still the primary way to express an architectural idea but, as Paul Rudolph my teacher at Yale — who could make amazing drawings, frequently said: "Pretty drawings do not an architect make." It's still the ideas, the discipline of forms in relationship to function, culture, technology that turns a clever design into a substantive work of architecture.

Not everything can be accomplished in school. The early years in the office are also very important to the students. These years are the profession's contribution to the students' education. It is very important for the beginning architect to chose the right office, one where the level of quality is high, where one can see how projects are studied and re-studied and how the relationship with the clients and the world of construction is successfully confronted. This is an extremely important part of an architect's growth. Schools set the stage for future growth; they are the beginning. School is not the place to teach working drawings but it is the place to introduce concepts that lie behind those drawings; it is the place to establish architecture's grounding in technology. Our job is to teach the young architect how to work individually and as part of a large group of other professionals who have other contributions to make - engineers, environmentalists, etc. — how, in fact, to lead that group in order to achieve a work of architecture. Architecture is the art of building but designing buildings is not an "art project." At Yale we believe that the designer has to be informed a thinker and a maker. The young architect needs to be empowered by knowledge and a certain sense of humility so that his or her ideas can be realized with whatever technology there is available.

MF  Can you talk briefly about the future of the School? Do you envision some changes in the future in terms of the way architecture is taught?

RAMS  Everything is possible. But not everything is right for every situation. The important thing is to free education from faddishness: architecture is not a beauty contest or a style war. Below the rhetoric of journalistic slogans and the individual passions of great talents there is a common ground, a shared sense of what a work of architecture must do to command respect. While there is plenty of high-flying rhetoric in our studios, we also focus on how buildings work, how the user fits into the picture, how the systems are integrated, and how the building is built. There are many ways of making architecture with many more no doubt to come — the human capacity for imaginative invention is limitless but that at the core there are certain standards that almost always define quality. The art of architecture is about taking artistic risks; but artistic risks that do not get in the way with quotidian necessity. Ignoring the basics is not to make art out of building but to condemn architecture to infantilism. Great architecture is much more than pretty shapes and gee-whiz graphics. The art of building is very different from a romp through the sandbox of media hype.