186 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE Cheerful Chats: Alvin Boyarsky and the Art of Teaching of Critical Architecture IGOR MARJANOVIC Iowa State University Fig. 1: The International Institute of Design Summer Fig. 3: The International Institute of Design Summer Session, publicity postcard. Session, publicity flyer for Peter Cook’s “5 Cheerful Chats”. Fig. 2: The International Institute of Design Summer Fig. 4: The International Institute of Design Summer Session 1970, publicity postcard. Session 1970, publicity stamps. CHEERFUL CATS 187 Fig. 5: The International Institute of Design Summer criticality is introduced as a synonym for change, Session 1972 letterhead. a comprehensive revision of inherited educational, professional, and ultimately social orders. I will argue here that critical architectural practice often begins in education, using Boyarsky’s curricular interventions as the main historical precedent. TEACHING MODERN ARCHITECTURE: EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONALIZATION The rise of architectural education is inseparable from the rise of professions in the nineteenth cen- tury. The nineteenth century saw the separation of professions, and analogously, the separation of academic disciplines into distinct bodies of knowl- edge. In the professional fields of the built envi- ronment, this meant the formation of architects, landscape architects, and planners as distinct pro- fessionals with separate professional, economical, and social mandates. Unlike the apprenticeship model of the pre-industrial world, the process of professionalization was enabled by the founding of institutions of higher learning that prepared graduates for the entry intro profession. Hannes Siegrist writes: First, the term (professionalization) frequently re- fers to processes by which an occupation acquires the character of an academic profession evidenced in the fact that relevant expertise as a prerequi- site to admittance to a given professional field could Introduction only be obtained in higher institutes of learning, professional practice being limited to those who All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries successfully complete entrance examination and which lead theory to mystics, find their rational obtain the respective title.1 solution in human practice and in the comprehen- sion of this practice.... The philosophers have only It is from this time that professions and education interpreted the world, in various ways; the point form a tentative alliance, framed by the context of is to change it. the capitalist nation state. This triad was material- ized in the US with the founding of the first archi- Karl Marx, 1845, Theses on Feurbach: II, VII, XI; tectural programs, such as those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 18652 and The history of architecture is in many ways insepa- at the University of Illinois in 1867. Founded in1847 rable from the history of architectural education, in London by Robert Kerr and Charles Grey, the its curricular developments and ideological perspec- Architectural Association became the oldest school tives. Modern architecture in particular offers a of architecture in the United Kingdom.3 These trans- unique legacy of architectural education—one that atlantic analogies speak about the similarities of is still implemented and debated today. This paper economical and social developments the US and will examine the teaching of critical architecture in UK, but they also foresee the increased traffic of the work of Alvin Boyarsky, chairperson of the Ar- ideas and people between the two countries and chitectural Association School of Architecture continents. The processes of establishing institu- (1971-1990) and one of the most influential de- tions of higher learning for architects was comple- sign educators of the last century. The notion of mented by the founding of professional institutions, 188 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) of professionalization by emphasizing artistic ex- in 1857, the National Council of Architectural Reg- cellence and social awareness and creating a se- istration Boards (NCARB) in 1919 in the US, and ries of events and publications that celebrated the the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in work of artists and architects. 1837, and the Architect’s Registration Board (ARB) in 1997 in the UK. It was through these organiza- BOYARSKY YEARS: EDUCATION VS. PROFESSIONALIZATION tions that the relationship between architectural education and practice has been negotiated Born in Montreal in 1928, Alvin Boyarsky grew up throughout the development of the modern move- in the predominantly French Canadian and Scot- ment. Furthermore, this relationship has been com- tish Presbyterian context of Quebec. He enrolled plicated by the issues of criticality, a constant desire in the School of Architecture at McGill University to change each other in the increasingly dominat- in 1946, as just one of five students not wearing ing context of the nation state. uniform. All other students came straight from the Second World War, funded through the GI bill of The first attempt to negotiate the position of ar- rights. This path is somewhat similar to the path chitecture within the socio-political context of the of figureheads of modern architecture, such as nation state was the act of its professionalization, Walter Gopius—a war casualty himself—who came “chiefly as a process of separation and exclusion to Bauhaus straight from the First World War. It is whereby a profession monopolizes occupational in this context of war—its casualties and the after- opportunities and functions in order to acquire or math—that Boyarsky established first contact with secure an exalted social and economic status.”4 The modern ideals.5 He would fly to New York for the second attempt relates to another aspect of archi- weekend, visit the Museum of Modern Art during tectural education, defined by its balance between the day, and read Giedion’s Space, Time, and Ar- sciences and arts or liberal arts and technology. chitecture at night. His education coincided with These relationships are not autonomously created the settlement of European modernists in Ameri- within the curriculum itself. Rather, they often re- can academe—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Laszlo flect societal needs and architects’ desires to re- Moholy-Nagy in Chicago, and Walter Gropius and spond to them. Architectural education responded Marcel Breuer in Cambridge. Overcrowded with to these needs in the nineteenth century by pro- GI’s, the McGill University campus was extended viding a separate course of study for architects, into an army-like suburban development of tem- one that solidified the historical processes of in- porary barracks and dormitories. It was in this con- dustrial production, the division of labor, market text of need for spatial and social rebuilding that economy, and political and social power. But it is Boyarsky developed as an architect. The work of precisely the modern phenomena of space produc- Le Crobuseir made the greatest impact: tion that led both academia and practice to its major challenge—one that would define their criticalities Aside from being a very powerful plastic artist in in the twentieth century—the issue of social re- his own right, Corb had that uncanny ability to pro- sponsibility. The architectural avant-gardes—both duce words, drawings and buildings which incor- in academia and practice—attempted to incorpo- porated both the polemic of the time and shall we rate social awareness by expanding the idea of say the culture and the history of architecture it- practice and incorporating into it a variety of artis- self. And he was able to use painterly techniques tic practices. This culminated in the artistically which made his drawings and his buildings speak based concept of the Bauhaus. The artists and ar- in many dimensions simultaneously. So for me the chitects shared their visual vocabulary and sites of Corb arrangement was a suitable framework to resistance, such as museums, academe and publi- enter the world of architecture. The proposition cations. I will argue here that the issue of social that architecture was in fact an artistic venture change separated architectural critical practice from which allowed one to speak coherently on many other professional and educational architectural fronts simultaneously. It involved a certain enve- endeavors, leading to the crisis of modern curricula lope for one’s idealism because Corb architecture and an ultimate clash between professionalization presupposed some kind of unified rebuilding of the and liberal architectural education. The work of world. It tended to unite painters and writers, it Alvin Boyarsky as an educator resisted the forces tended to unite arts.6 CHEERFUL CATS 189 It is through this narrative of Le Corbusier’s work pedagogies of the time.8 However, their activities that Boyarsky’s agenda for the art of teaching so challenged senior faculty, that all the Texas emerges, an agenda for artistic excellence and Rangers were ultimately forced to leave Austin. design endeavors that transcend drawing, writing, and social idealism. The work of Texas Rangers is ambiguously related to the Bauhuas legacy. On the one hand it accepted After graduation from McGill, Boyarsky went on a the Bauhaus tradition of connecting architectural European grand tour, ending up working in an ar- studio to other artistic disciplines. This was par- chitectural office in London.