Introducing Students for Classical Architecture
The groundwork is currently being laid for a new student group in the School of Architecture. Students for Classical Architecture, as it will be called, seeks to fill a void in the landscape of architectural education.
At Notre Dame, classicism occupies a privileged place in our curriculum, not only because it expresses a historical and humanist link with the accumulated heritage of architecture, but because it is the system of architecture most amenable to dialogue with the classics of the other liberal arts. It allows students to appreciate the unity of knowledge and the universality of human experience, the only true antidote to a regime of self-expression for its own sake.
Our first meeting included a half-hour debate whether we should be called Students for Classical Architecture or Students for Traditional Architecture. The words ‘classical’ and ‘traditional’ mean different things to different people, but in the end we found classical to be the correct modifier. Notre Dame does not intend that every one of its graduates should necessarily become a card-carrying Beaux-Arts practitioner. It is not about building gleaming, white temples; it is about having a classical education in architecture.
Just as your introductory philosophy course wouldn’t delve into Derrida without first covering Plato and Aristotle, it makes no sense to pretend that world began with Le Corbusier and ignore Vitruvius. Yet recently the accrediting body for professional architecture degrees in the United States has abandoned even a minimum requirement in architectural history from its criteria.
We believe that students deserve to be exposed to the canon of classical architecture, and that there are many talented future architects in schools throughout this country and internationally who desire to engage this tradition. Because we at Notre Dame are fortunate enough to have a supportive and coherent formation in this tradition, we feel that it is our obligation to provide a network, an umbrella of sorts, under which other students can form chapters. Students in schools that, whether out of ambivalence or animosity, do not currently teach a foundation in classical architecture, will hopefully find in us a sympathetic and collegial voice for a rebirth of architectural education.
People familiar with Notre Dame’s architecture program know that we spend a full year studying in Rome. When I go back to my hometown and tell them about this experience, there is an astonishingly consistent response. As my classmates have corroborated, a typical member of the public will invariably say something to the effect of “That’s the place to study architecture,” or “They sure have some great architecture over there.”
This is not simply reflexive prattle; people genuinely appreciate the fact that Rome occupies a unique status in the history of civilization and its accompanying infrastructure. The American public, for all their shopping centers and office towers, still instinctively understand this. What far fewer well-meaning citizens realize, however, is just how ignored this tradition is in the academy. I am often left with the impression that the public assumes all architects graduated knowing the Ionic order (or as my non-architect friends affectionately call it, the “one with the curly things”) inside and out.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is true that a number of architecture schools offer students the opportunity to study abroad in Rome, or at least Europe. Two of my friends, at other well-regarded universities, are spending this spring in Italy. But in no other school is it mandatory, not for two semesters. And no other school makes nearly the same effort to reintegrate that experience with modern practice after you leave the cobblestones of Rome behind.
In most other schools, study abroad is painted primarily as vehicle for cultural and urban exposure. Sure, you visit the ruins, but they aren’t seen as nearly so sociologically relevant today. The Romans built that for their time, and now we build titanium fractals for ours. This attitude, however, is increasingly beset by questions of consumerism and sustainability, community and human dignity. I think the opportunities are already in place for a tremendous reevaluation of what architectural education can and ought to be, and we at Students for Classical Architecture are hoping to be a part of it.
Matthew Balkey is a 4th year architecture student and a founding member of Students for Classical Architecture. He may be reached at mbalkey@nd.edu.
