10 snapshots of Architectural Education

Abstract

Architecture is an inherent part of every society. It is an indicator of political, economic, technological and cultural conditions, as well as their changes. The built environment is constantly changing, generating new paradoxes, and the role of the architect, too, is subject to continuous re-formation. Along ten photographic snapshots found in institutional and private archives, and with the support of extended captions, this visual essay aims to provide an incomplete overview of the multifaceted teaching environment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, from the mid nineteenth to the late twentieth century. The presented snapshots of architectural educators and their respective design studios reveal a variety of design methodologies and didactic structures that shaped the school over the course of more than a century.