Re: SCI-Arc ad

Greetings,

I was accepted to SCI-Arc this past year, and had I not received a
full tuition grant to study at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's
recently accredited Master's program, I would be there today. I find the
school's approach very radical, but their goals are very in line with
the philosophy of contemporary architectural education: to produce
architects that are self-reliant in their pursuit of creating not necessarily
a "new" architecture, but a very "personal " architecture. After all, this is
what the Modern Art/Architectural movements were all about. Sure, Gropius had
his utopian hierarchy-less firm, but in the end his name is the first to
emerge from the pedagogical soup, and thus it is remembered as "his firm".
I believe that architecture is first and foremost an art, and though it
is an appilied art, one must understand the mechanisms of art before they
can be applied-- otherwise it is building and not architecture that one
is pursuing. Thus, SCI-Arc is a fantastic breath of fresh air in today's
architecutural world. In my interview I was told about how the school
was begun by an artist/architect that was not allowed to teach in his own
style at his current place of employment, and left...da ta da. Now, after
twenty years of structuring and restructuring, they feel they have achieved
a strong balance between hierarchy and non-hierarchy. I think now is
when SCI-Arc will prosper, without the strong hierarchy-based curriculum
of so many ultra-political programs (i.e. Harvard with their graduated
studio structure-- the fifth year students can all look down upon their
younger siblings...blech.)

Just yesterday in a crit. here at NJIT I introduced some drawings that were
considered more "artsy", since they contained graphics/photographic/textual
snipits from magazines/personaa photos. I happened to be wearing my
SCI-Arc cap that I bought during my interview/visit last winter, and when
other first-year grad students began to question/comment on this new
style (even for me), the prof. noted that NJIT lacked this kind of
"experimentation". She feels that all architects (as do I) should have a
strong background in the arts before they enter the field (not to mention
the Vitruvian math, science, astrology, music,law,med....). She then
went on to quell the controversy of my stylistic pursuits with a recounting
of a project done by a SCI-Arc undergrad here at NJIT: a 3-D model
representing a piece of music done by Phillip Glass-- Einstien on the
Beach, I believe. It was the most phenominal model done in this
music/spatial integration that any of the profs. here at NJIT had seen.
I believe that if one can grasp the complexity of "music as space/sapce
as music"... then one will have no problem grasping similar or simpler
concepts in architecture. This is a tribute to SCI-Arc's "radical"
teaching style.

I am currently writing a paper on Aldo Rossi for my History of Classicism
course here at NJIT; and I have found that not only was Rossi considered
an architect not to follow when he was at the Milan Politecnic, but he
currently feels the entire structure of architectural education is in a
crisis. Listen to this man--he is one of the strongest willed architects
of our time. Architecture is not a teachable subject; it is one that
needs guidance through, amd a heavy emphasis should be placed on presentation.
Thus we need artistically inclined teachers to guide us through the
presentationof our ideas, not to fit us into the current styles. "You can
teach a person
english, but not to be Shakespeare."-- Aldo Rossi.

John Pohorylo
NJIT Grad Student
JFP7400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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