Yale exhibition celebrates centennial of architecture education

As the Yale School of Architecture (YSoA) prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2016, a new exhibition will explore the relationship between teaching architecture and the spaces in which that education takes place.

“Pedagogy and Place: Celebrating 100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale” has been organized by Jimmy Stamp ’11 M.E.D. and Robert A.M. Stern, the J.M. Hoppin Professor of Architecture, who is stepping down as dean of the YSoA at the end of June. The exhibition will present YSoA alumni work and archival documents tracing the development of architecture education at Yale and the buildings that have housed the architecture program.

“Pedagogy and Place” will be on view Dec. 3–May 7 in the YSoA Gallery in Rudolph Hall, 180 York St. It is free and open to the public Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

An auxiliary installation, using research produced by students in Stern’s spring seminar, depicts more than 30 architecture schools from around the world to further illuminate the evolution of architecture education and the relationship between pedagogy and place. Schools documented in this section of the exhibition include Sir John Soane’s house, the École des Beaux-Arts, the Bauhaus, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and The Cooper Union. A complete list of schools included in the exhibition can be found on Yale’s website.

A related publication, “Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale,” will be published in April 2016 by Yale Press (hardcover, 664 p.). The book examines how the School of Architecture has evolved over the past century, tracing the impact of those who taught or studied there — as well as the architecturally significant buildings that housed the program — on the evolution of architecture education. There will also be a symposium, “Learning/Doing/Thinking: Educating Architects,” April 14–16.

Over the last century the Yale School of Architecture has produced some of the world’s most influential architects and artists, including George Nelson ’28 B.A., ’31 B. Arch.; Eero Saarinen ’34 B. Arch.; Norman Foster ’62 M.Arch., ’03 Ph.D. (Hon); Richard Rogers ‘62 M.Arch., and Maya Lin ’81, ’86 M.Arch.

From its beginnings in the late 19^th century, the program stressed design as the fundamental discipline in architecture education. Architecture at Yale was initially taught as an art discipline at the Yale School of Fine Arts, the first college-affiliated art school in the country. The Department of Architecture was established in 1916; in 1959 the School of Art and Architecture, as it was then known, became a graduate professional school; and in 1972, Yale formalized the School of Architecture as its own, separate professional school.

Today the YSoA is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious architectural schools in the world, offering pre-professional courses to undergraduates and professional degrees to graduate students, as well as M.E.D. and Ph.D. degrees for advanced research. Many of the school’s students also pursue joint degree programs with the School of Management and School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. YSoA is also known for its Jim Vlock Building Project, mandatory for all first-year graduate students, who design and build a house in an economically challenged neighborhood in New Haven.

Stern graduated from the School of Architecture in 1965 and became dean in 1998. In late September Yale announced that Deborah Berke, architect and founder of the New York-based design firm Deborah Berke Partners, will assume the deanship July 1.