“Architecture University, Incorporated” Ardeth no. 10.11 (2023), pp. 251-271. doi: 10.17454/ARDETH10-11.14
Excerpt: “It is now common knowledge that universities in the United States function like corporations. Inside their pastoral campuses and behind their ivy-covered facades, administrators boast about their billion-dollar fundraising campaigns while they replace longstanding allegiances to “culture” with spirited pursuits of “excellence” – an empty signifier plucked from the lexicon of business. Less known is how corporations, including architecture firms, now borrow the uni- versity moniker for educational initiatives. “Gensler University” teaches architects about management, leadership, and business; “Kahn University” fills in educational gaps about tools, techniques, and profes- sional standards; at SHoP Architects, a more ironic “U” provides workers with a bottom-up platform for strengthening the firm’s culture.1 This article com- pares these recent “university” initiatives in tandem with changes to national accreditation criteria for architecture schools in the United States. In so doing, it makes visible some of the chronic and fundamental misalignments between academia and practice, and it raises new questions about what it might take to educate architects who can improve or transform a profession gripped by the hands of contemporary corporate capitalism.”
