Review: Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architectural Education at Yale, by Robert A. M. Stern and Jimmy Stamp

Abstract

Robert A. M. Stern and Jimmy Stamp Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architectural Education at Yale New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2016, 660 pp., 70 color and 253 b/w illus. $100 (cloth), ISBN 9780300211924 From the Accademia di San Luca through the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to the creation of accredited schools of architecture in the United States, education has played an influential role in the formation of the architect. As the academy goes, so goes the profession. Judging by its graduates, one of the most influential institutions during the past century has been the Yale School of Architecture. What differentiates it from competitors such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Penn, and Columbia? In this brilliant and detailed history, Dean Robert A. M. Stern and Jimmy Stamp offer a comprehensive explanation of Yale's unique qualities and the people, both students and faculty, who have made Yale one of the most revered places to study architecture in the United States. How much did the members of Yale's faculty and their pedagogy influence the trajectory of American architecture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? The authors claim that Yale was at the forefront of architectural debate and new movements. Yet at the same time they give credit to the students’ individual creativity, which the school has sought to foster. Stern defines Yale as a pluralist school within a college of art. From the debates between Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn to student juries attended by opposites such as Leon Krier and Peter Eisenman, Yale has prided itself on being a place where disparate theories of architecture can be explored. This can be very exciting or very confusing, depending on the student's background. My own experience with the school's pluralist pedagogy in the 1980s was less that all ideas were equal and more that everyone was welcome to get beaten up in the boxing ring. From its …