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Design Review: Volume 1, Issue 5 (February-March 1949)

Education Supplement — including Prospectus of the Wellington School of Architecture and Town Planning — Architectural Education In New Zealand

page 16

Education Supplement
including Prospectus of the Wellington School of Architecture and Town Planning
Architectural Education In New Zealand

In many countries throughout the world the system of architectural training whereby pupils were articled for a given period to a particular architect or firm has been largely abandoned over the past twenty or thirty years. In its place the trend has been towards a thorough school training with a maximum amount of practical office work during the course. This principle has now become firmly established.

In this country, as the pupilage system fell into disuse, the responsibility for architectural education passed from the individual architects to the University, and while this responsibility has been and si being fulfilled towards a group of students through the Auckland University School of Architecture, established in 1926, provision made for those students who are obliged to carry on their studies away from Auckland is inadequate. There are considerable numbers of such ‘professional’ students in centres throughout New Zealand and there are many reasons why it is not practicable that they spend their training period at the Auckland School—not least among them being the necessity for assistants in architects' offices all over the country.

The Testimony System

At present these students are required to submit Testimonies of Study to the examiners in Auckland but these are merely intended to provide a standard of entry into the N.Z.I.A., and are no substitute for the tuition in design and construction formerly provided by the individual architect, and latterly (in other countries) by numerous and well-distributed Schools of Architecture. Under this present system the onus is on the student to educate himself up to the bare standard required.

At its best, and applied to certain subjects of limited scope, this system may function sufficiently well to maintain a fair standard, but applied to such a specialized and individual study as architectural design, the results can never be satisfactory. The designs submitted by the students are intended literally to be ‘testimonies of study’, but this complementary study is not supervised or directed along the most effective lines, and indeed the design problems are not directly related to any clearly defined course of study.

The prime necessity to gain a pass hampers initiative and enterprise and leads to mediocrity in design. Because the examiners are unknown to the student, and because he is given no reason for his failures, he usually blames the jury's verdict rather than the quality of his own design.

Examination Stupor

Apart from the fact that a tremendous amount of time is wasted by students doing testimonies that are failed, the lack of intelligent approach to each design problem together with poor facilities for working and a lack of enthusiasm through consequent overwork leads to the employment of an excessive amount of time. As the work is not planned the rush heightens with the approach of the closing date. Students come to work tired, and their thoughts during the day are on testimonies. Efficiency and speed of work suffers. So does their health. One-half to two-thirds of the time spent by many students on Testimonies would be sufficient for a full year's design work in a full-time School of Architecture.

Organized Assistance

Until 1946 students in Wellington got along as best they could and the standard of work was generally very low. Failures were more frequent than passes. With a small degree of organized assistance given by the Architectural Centre in 1947 the standard in Wellington improved and the percentage of passes increased. In 1948 when fully organized assistance was given to all students there was a noticeable improvement, but results have not been completely satisfactory. As set design problems should derive logically from a course of studio study, it has been found practically impossible to evolve a course of study around design problems set externally. Again, the approach to contemporary design adopted by the school staff has not necessarily been that followed by the examiners and in some cases the students are left in a confused state of mind. Even though, for the first time students had organized assistance from competent instructors, compromises were made to suit what were thought to be the personal predelictions of the jury in Auckland. This development is much to be deplored as unifying influences in design, so necessary in the establishment of a stable and satisfying contemporary architecture in this country, are absent from the students' training.

Much Still to be Done

Architectural education in New Zealand, like so many other activities, is hardly out of the pioneering stage. Much has, of course, been done, but there still remains much more. It is little more than thirty years since the New Zealand Institute of Architects set up the first system of examinations and only twenty since properly organized teaching could be had. The original N.Z.I.A. examinations, modeled on those of the R.I.B.A. and the system adopted by the School of Architecture at Auckland University College, both followed closely on English precedent. This was no doubt right and proper in the early stages, but it is now evident that further developments to meet the special needs of this country are required.

Whatever may have been the position in past times, it can no longer be logically claimed that learning to be an architect is properly a part-time occupation. The results obtained by those taking the Professional Course prove that it is only those with exceptional ability and tenacity that make even reasonable progress. Further, it is questionable whether without expert direction during the course they benefit from it as they should.