Unorthodox Pedagogy: The American School Approach

Abstract

At the University of Oklahoma (OU) under the leadership of Bruce Goff, a new approach to teaching and practicing architecture, known as the American School , developed in the mid-twentieth century. While other schools followed curricula inspired by European modernism, the American School taught students to imagine novel, experimental, and organic forms. Students were challenged to use ordinary and found materials from wood shingles and feathers to ashtrays and sewer pipes. They were taught to respond to the characteristics of a site, climate, program, and client. Most importantly, the American School approach sought to produce the architectural equivalent of chefs: students known for combining ingredients andforms in inventive ways, rather than line cooks who dutifully followed the recipes of their instructors. This approach stood in contrast to the predominant approach of the day as international modernism evolved into an orthodox dogma in schools across the U.S. At a moment when student work in architecture schools increasingly looked the same—marked by flat roofs, ribbon windows, glass, steel and concrete— the American School work was alarmingly different. While students elsewhere learned to imitate the styles promoted by their professors, the American School taught students to develop their own identity as designers. Today, as the idea of a school producing disciples is becoming retrograde, reconsidering the American School approach is long overdue. An examination of this unorthodox pedagogical approach helpsus understand how educators can coach students to cultivate creativity. This paper asks what we can learn from outliers of the American School, the so-called renegades? An examination of assignments and student work reveals how innovation was, and still can be, taught.