The role of technical education in architectural studies

Abstract

Many practising professionals complain about the incompetence of the graduates entering the profession of architecture. It regards mainly the revealed deficiencies in their technical knowledge and skills. This situation could be improved by modifications in architecture schools’ curricula by assigning more important roles in teaching to technical content. However, it seems that one of the main reasons for the graduates’ inadequate technical preparedness is the circulating opinion among the candidates for architectural studies indicating falsely that this education is typically artistic only. The position of technical subjects in the curricula, measured and expressed in the assigned credit points in relation to all other subjects varies significantly in different schools. It means that some schools emphasise strongly the role of technical education in architectural studies, and others clearly underestimate this issue. The main purpose of this study was to analyse these relations across different schools. Through this study, a group of schools fostering technical knowledge and emphasising its role in their academic programmes has been identified. The findings indicate that there is a causal relationship between the high quality of technical education in architecture schools and the high quality of local architecture.