Architecture student shows 2012: The Bartlett School of Architecture

Readers' comments (49)

• Rod Hull | 27 June 2012 6:08 am

  Putting aside all of the reasons why it is possible to be critical of architectural education today, It is hard not to appreciate the level of thought, effort and care put in by the students and staff to produce work of such quality.

• zecks_marquise | 27 June 2012 9:05 am

  stewie - the bartlett has always adopted the policy that students should learn how to think critically about architecture, not how to detail something which a (churlish) cad monkey could do. for that reasson the bartlett has for many years been regarded by practicing architects as the very best of architectural academia. So at the very least i think you should respect the efforts of these graduates - chances are they will be your boss in the not too distant future.

• One way and thats up! | 27 June 2012 9:21 am

  Same comments every year from those that have never seen the work up close and take a archiac view on something they dont understand.
  
  There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. - Mary Kay Ash
  
  You choose which one you fall into....

• Yoshiwara | 27 June 2012 10:03 am

  ..and Barlett students who make things that look exactly like last year's unit work.

• S W | 27 June 2012 11:06 am

  There are too many architects here, criticising our own schools for pushing students to consider the future of the profession, for promoting the advancement of architectural technologies and challenging the status quo of how we work and what we design.
  
  Surely without pushing creativity and future theoretical questions we are undervaluing the entire profession. What use is training all students to know how to design architectural mediocrity, office blocks and bad housing? Then criticise it and award them The Carbuncle Cup.
  
  To add value to the profession we need to be progressive. If you don’t see this work as progressive, then at least admire its Ambition. It is this combination of creativity and unrelenting Ambition that will progress the profession and retain its value. If we train students for the present we will become obsolete in the future.

• Stewie | 27 June 2012 5:21 pm

  Zecks, they won't be my boss I would refuse to work with them, an Architect is supposed to be a master builder, I doubt that any Bartlett students have any building experience never mind the detailing knowledge. Some I wager would need sitting down and explaining to what a building site actually is, perhaps even going so far as to actually visiting one. Anyway detailing is important to architectual design as you need to be able to specify what you exactly want and where in order for the whole design to be effective, as the old cliche goes 'you can't walk before you can run'. I pity any Architecture practice that may end up with Bartlett students in their practice they would be practically useless, they would have to train them again from scratch. I think the student would feel it the most though as they would realise that the Bartlett has left them ill prepared for Architecture in the real world, steep learning curve? try a verticle line upwards!
  
  Main problem with the Bartlett is that they think they are a touch above everyone else, but unfortunately you can't cover up a lack of being able to get to grips with architecture with arrogance and pretentiousness. As Gbob rightly stated, the likes of Peter Cook & Bartlett crowd still think they have a greater understanding of architecture even when the plug in city has never been realised. It's time they pulled their head in if they can't back up their approach with any realisation in the real world otherwise they are trying to tell those that live in the real world how to go about tings with any experience themselves, sheer ignorance. No, I do not see anything to respect here, I think many CAD monkey's could be just as 'creative' as they are, its not difficult. I would have no problem beating their 'efforts' at architecture, Peter Cook or any Bartlett lecturer, and I was right wasn't I you are one of the Bartlett crowd, a Bartlett lecturer perhaps?

• Freddie Vonberg | 27 June 2012 6:04 pm

  I am not an Architect, I'm a medic, but I would just like to say - and I look with particular gratitude to you here, 'Stewie'- how incredibly refreshing and reassuring I find it that some of the comments I read here, on the website for such a prestigious organ as Building Design, are as ill thought-out and provocatively offensive as on any of the best websites I could peruse elsewhere, and I include YouTube in this.
  
  A particular favourite quotation for me is "Some [Bartlett students] I wager would need sitting down and explaining to what a building site actually is". I almost wish I could meet you, Stewie, just to take you up on such a ludicrous bet.
  
  So, thank you. If the comments written by those from a profession with as much gravitas as Architecture can be as nonsensical as any of those I might read in 'rectal polyps weekly' or some other of my favourite medical websites, then many of my fears are much assuaged.
  
  Also possibly worth noting that focusing on theory before the practical application of skills is a well established approach in many vocations. My medical school has been devoting the first half of a six-year course entirely to scientific and medical theory for over 800 years!

• Getafix | 27 June 2012 11:45 pm

  Although some of the criticisms of the Bartlett are valid, the school is still leagues ahead of pretty much any other school in the UK. The students often get derided and lacking technical understanding but the work is usually far more technically thought-through than supposedly 'real' architecture produced elsewhere. I want to disapprove but the virtuosity of the work just blows you away.

• christos stylianou | 28 June 2012 0:36 am

  I visited the Bartlett and the AA exhibitions yesterday and I have also seen the Manchester show this year. This is third Bartlett exhibition I have seen and for me, although year in year out the there are variations of similar themes it was exceptional. What I love about the Bartlett is that it acknowledges that graduates may not want to go off and just design buildings. Some units excel in hand drawings, others animation, others hand modelling. Although these are skills that as architects we all need , the school hones in and drives the individual to extract every last drop out of of their specific medium . Is it style over substance? In parts yes in others no and that is no different to any school. Learning how to put buildings together is something that you can learn in practice, bringing ideas, creativity and pungency to the table is equally vital and the Bartlett does this in abundance

• Gbob Romulus | 28 June 2012 3:15 am

  Zecks...dear Zecks....in fact all architecture schools do condone thinking criticaly....but what is the point when all the critical thinking that proportedly takes place....we till arrive at the same or near enough same conclusions...... that thinking architecture at the Bartlett surmounts to NOT thinking architecture...but thinking animation...thinking weird suspention of laboratory instruments and all manner of parephernalia that provokes strangeness in ones mind, not elevation of ones appreciation of the built environment. For who do we wish these starnge and undesirable visions of space for...the guy who lives in a council flat..? would he change his home for these types of ideas of buildings.. for the future of human well being....or the elderly in care homes....or the mother with children to think about....or is it something that might just appeal to the trendy 'ubber' style over substance kind of person who you might meet in a trendy bar in Shoreditch. Architecture is for the people it should not represent itself by appealing in a esoteric presumptuousness.