1. Pedagogical concerns

This proposal to initiate an academic program leading to a post-professional degree of Master of Architectureis meant to address a number of concerns which we consider to be critical in the way architectural education is offered, monitored and regulated in India today. We prefer to refer to such a program as “post-professional” as opposed to “post-graduate” to highlight the fact that even some of the best programs available after the first professional degree of B.Arch. in a number of related fields of specialization such as Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, Conservation etc. address primarily the professional preoccupation with normative prescription of “what ought to be”. While this is indeed needed, a critical understanding of “what is” and “why it is the way it is” is not even considered necessary. If, as Mark Wigley has observed, the school of architecture is the laboratory where the profession of architecture negotiates its future, then it is necessary to go beyond the professional preoccupation and address the discipline of architecture. Listed below are a series of concerns, often expressed as questions, which have guided the specifics of the academic program.

Distinction between the discipline and the profession of architecture

The discipline of architecture is broader than and historically prior to the profession of architecture. It is concerned with nature, meaning and broader implications of architecture which may or may not translate into “applicable knowledge”. Its goal is primarily a critical understanding rather than a normative prescription. Although critique may be expected to inform action.

The distinction between the discipline and the profession, then will be similar to that between the technical intelligentsia / professional, operating within the existing paradigms to solve today’s problems, and the critical intellectuals who challenge these paradigms to help shape the future. We see design as essentially a humanistic enterprise and an architect as one who both serves the society as well as shapes it. This program aims to balance between both these responsibilities.

Meaningful research into a particular field of specialization must be informed by a simultaneous concern with the discipline of architecture. For a post-professional program in architecture this broader engagement with the discipline is absolutely essential. This does not mean a disregard or contempt for the profession, but a desire to challenge and perhaps redefine standard professional practice rather than catering to its demands. How do we do this? What kind of a relationship can be conceived between the post-professional program and the profession of architecture outside the School? It will be the endeavor of the program to forge a meaningful relationship with profession through a constant stream of visiting faculty as well as regular events such as seminars / workshops, conferences etc.

We also recognize that the discipline of architecture embraces both what is internal to architecture and what is influenced by social, cultural, technological etc. reality outside it --i.e. it is neither totally autonomous and self-referential, nor reducible to sociological, technological etc. determinisms. What is internal to the discipline of architecture is difficult to pinpoint and intellectual frameworks borrowed from other disciplines (e.g. semiology or behavioral sciences both once popular in architectural culture or the more recent appeal of deconstruction theory), although providing significant insights, ultimately fail to address it. How can the post-professional program address what is internal to the discipline of architecture? How can it encourage theses in architecture rather than in engineering, behavioral sciences, art history etc.? Without presuming to give answers to these questions, we can only say that we are seized of these concerns and hope to address them through the academic and research work.

Our understanding of and commitment to critique/criticism as central to architectural research.

This is a question that a school should be struggling with in the entire curriculum but it is crucial in the post-professional program. We wish to see criticism not as an evaluative judgment, but as a questioning of authoritative or taken-for-granted propositions and an uncovering of the premises / biases / assumptions underlying actions and discourses. The goal is not necessarily to replace them with a new, supposedly "better" set of actions / discourses, but merely to install an awareness which is itself a new condition since it is no longer taken for granted and is open to further questioning. How do we incorporate this understanding of critique to post-professional research? Given the fact that the major thrust of our existing post-professional programs is in technology, or technology-related fields, how do we fight against the perception of technology as "applied science" or "instrumental rationality? Again with reference to Kuhn's idea that important advances and imaginative leaps in the growth of knowledge come about when people start thinking critically --i.e. outside the boundaries of existing paradigms, do we expect and encourage all research in the post-professional program to have this critical outlook or do we "back up" and accept that some research is bound to operate within existing paradigms?

This discussion will also touch upon the question what we mean by theory? This opens up a long list of concerns which we must address. How do we deal with the theory / practice concept pair frequently encountered as a dichotomy? How does theory inform action or design? How is a theory different from belief, prophecy, insight etc.? How do we make choices between theories? How do we operate in the middle ground between monism / determinism on one end of the spectrum, and total relativism of the "anything goes" sort on the other? What are the implications of "normative" (i.e. concerned with "doing") versus critical"(i.e. concerned with "undoing") theories as far as architectural inquiry is concerned? We believe this is another very crucial area and we intend to confront it both in the design of the program curriculum and its day-to-day operations.

What constitutes research in architecture?

This question is tightly connected to the previous ones and existing views are widely divided. While many believe that architectural research should address the discipline of architecture (S.Anderson, 1984), others perceive it as research in support of the profession as opposed to research in a discipline"(W.D.Conn, 1984). That the former is closer to our view of architecture-as-a-critical-rather-than-normative-pursuit is already mentioned. "What constitutes research in architecture?" is an extremely urgent question for us to clarify --particularly as we have a undergraduate Thesis Program.

In most cases, the tacit assumption is that "scientific research" provides the adequate model. Scientific knowledge --i.e. calculable, measurable, re-presentable, predictable etc. knowledge is assumed to be superior and other forms of knowledge or inquiry (narrative, creative etc.) are discredited as legitimate forms of research. This dominant construct is problematic in two fundamental respects among others: i) the discipline of architecture is not that "scientific": All previous attempts to make architecture quantifiable and predictable (from Durand to early C. Alexander) have failed in one way or another. We probably need a new understanding of "research" to reflect the nature of re-search in the discipline of architecture, which includes design as a specific form of research. This will also require a rethinking of the objectivity / subjectivity issue in a new light. "Objectivity is subjectivity made clear" (Peter McCleary); ii) Science itself is not that "scientific". There are important insights to be gained from the more recent intellectual / philosophical shift from the realm of science to that of hermeneutics, casting a great suspicion of the claims to the objectivity and of value-free scholarship. " ... The historicity of our existence entails that prejudices in the literal sense of the word constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby what we encounter says something to us" (H.G.Gadainer)

In the light of the above, we need to rethink what we mean by research methods which frequently follow the scientific model and is understood as "techniques" of doing research. (Most graduate programs had, or still have, those "research methods” courses which talk about formulating hypotheses/case studies/proof sequences, about designing questionnaires and controlled experiments and more recently, about computer techniques).

How can we talk about design as a research program?

Can we have a core curriculum embracing methods of inquiry? What do we mean by the latter?

What is understood by "methods of inquiry" seems to change substantially depending upon the specific orientation of graduate programs and their specific understanding of what constitutes research in architecture. The basic distinction seems to be between those programs which look at natural and social sciences as their model for methods of inquiry and those which emphasize scholarly or humanistic disciplines (These are information about Ph.D. programs rather than Masters but can still be helpful in our thinking about the post-professional program). Do we have a position with respect to the "science versus humanities" based approaches to inquiry? Can we begin to think about an alternative position, which denies a rigid separation between science and humanities?

There is an acknowledged need for "interdisciplinary discussion of methods of inquiry". A core curriculum for the post-professional program may possibly provide this. It may be conceived as a series of seminars which pose "second order questions" concerned not with the information, the body of knowledge or the object of study itself but with the tacit assumptions, world-views, implications and intentions underlying both what is studied and the manner in which it is studied. To be more specific and clear, it may be a concern with, for instance, philosophy of science and technology (rather than science and technology per se), or theories of architecture (rather than architecture itself as artifacts), or historiography / philosophy of history (rather than history proper). Randomly picking the last example, it is an investigation, not of, say, Renaissance architecture, but the way historians have studied the Renaissance and the implications of different ways in which Renaissance can be studied. Of more contextual relevance would be to look at Indian architecture as observed and analyzed through the “Orientalist” perspective. Similarly, it is not a study of scientific theories, (which is obviously beyond the scope of an architectural program) but the meaning of different views about what is science? How scientific knowledge grows? What is the role of critical thinking in science etc.? --well known questions addressed by Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend among many.

In short, the core curriculum of the program (i.e. the portion that is pre-structured and required as opposed to electives and independent studies) can be conceived as a framework to address the more universal questions and issues related to ways of thinking, designing and/or researching, the implications of which are broader than and relevant for any specific field or discipline.

What is the status of design in post-professional studies?

How do we maintain design as the central preoccupation of the School also in advanced and specialized research? More significantly how do design and research simultaneously inform each other rather than ending up with either of two not-so-uncommon situations: i) a-priori design ideas or preferences to which research merely provides supportive data, or ii) a specific research project which is a-posteriori rationalized and legitimized by claims to applicability in design.

In addressing this question we need to clarify what we see as the relevant and legitimate end product of the post-professional program, i.e. What is a thesis? a written text? a project? both?

What constitutes a 'field of specialization within the post-professional program? What are the "fields" we can offer?

The field(s) offered by a program are largely prescribed by pragmatic concerns: existing resources, faculty interests and expertise, available or potential grants etc. At this initial stage of definition when our post-professional program is merely "embryonic", do we confine ourselves to what is immediately available / possible or do we have aspirations beyond that and should therefore channel our search (for identity, resources, money, new faculty etc) accordingly?

It is proposed that at least initially we confine ourselves with offering a good set of electives depending upon available faculty in our existing programs. But even in the long term, we see this posing a problem: our present strengths allow us to offer future specialization in the areas of History, Theory, and Criticism (HTC) on one hand and Architectural technology on the other. Bur such a broad categorization reintroduces some of the dichotomies mentioned earlier and collapses back into a polarity thinking: i.e. HTC as more humanities-based and Architectural Technologies as more science-based? Or HTC more engaged with the discipline of architecture and Architectural technologies, with the profession of architecture etc. The question is how to map our fields of specialization and at the same time blur these distinctions between humanities/science, discipline/profession etc. and ensure that whatever is the field of specialization, there is an essential engagement with architecture and design.

How do we integrate the plurality of world-views which may help us construct the theoretical base of the rich traditions of architectural ideas of the non-Western civilizations, especially that of India?

The very acceptance of critical inquiry as central to our work mandates that we uncover the implicit assumptions / biases / prejudices of the dominant worldview, of the “Orientalism” kind, which has for several centuries provided the primary intellectual framework for architectural discourse. We believe that a critical and fresh look at Indian architecture as an expression of an alternative worldview is important (and possible) not only for its own sake but also because it may provide a significant ‘other’ with which to profile the contours of the taken-for-granted dominant view.

2. Program

The program will be of full two years – four semester – duration and will carry a load of 15 credits per semester. It is titled as M.Arch.(HTCD) HTCD stands for History, Theory, Criticism and Design. It aims to balance both the professional and academic (discipline) concerns of architecture. Thus studio remains an important component of the program though unlike the under graduate programs, it is does not occupy the position of centrality in the curricular structure. Design studios will be accompanied by a series of lecture/seminar courses in the areas of history, theory and criticism.

The thrust of the program will be on ‘what’ and ‘why’ rather than ’how’. Explorations and questioning of taken-for-granted assumptions will constitute the core method for all work.

Each of the first three semesters will focus on one of the three primary thrusts of the program, i.e. history, theory and criticism. A cluster of events / lectures / seminars etc. will compliment studio work. For example, during the first semester, with Theories of Architecture as the thrust area, students will participate in a seminar aimed at exploring various theoretical positions taken throughout history by various writers and their underlying assumptions. This will be complimented with a series of 2-3 lectures on related subjects by invited guests. The semester will conclude with a school wide conference where each student, registered for the course will present a paper on a chosen topic (together with other participant from around the country). The proceeds of all three conferences will be published as the annual contribution of the school towards the discipline of architecture.

The program is aimed for students who intend to enter the profession with a fresh perspective on the role of the architect as a concerned citizen who both serves the society as well as shapes it. It is also aimed at those who are preparing for academic careers as teachers in schools of architecture. Towards this end an element of Teaching Assistance ship in the undergraduate studios is included in the last two semesters. The students will be able to apply their critical perspectives to actual studio criticism and analysis. They will work with the existing full time faculty and take part in team teaching. This will not only help the students but also help augment the teaching skills of the undergraduate school.

3. Relevance

In the context of architectural profession in contemporary India

A booming economy coupled with increasing global integration and exposure has created conditions in which Indian cities are growing at an unprecedented speed. Projects of significance and magnitude unimaginable a few decades ago are already changing our urban environment in a way that may make them indistinguishable from any other global city. The challenge before us is to address the growing aspirations of people to be part of the global community and yet retain the anchor rooted in the sense of space and place so characteristic in traditional Indian architecture and urbanism and which is still valid. In this situation, is the profession of architecture equipped and prepared to meet the challenge? The answer to this question will have to be a qualified yes and no. While one sees isolated efforts by individual designers, there is an urgent need to support and strengthen these with body of knowledge founded on a critical analysis of both the historical heritage and the ongoing contemporary works of architects attempting to meet this challenge in disparate ways. There is an urgent need to train a young crop of architects who may, through their work, resist the seduction of globalized universal language. This aspect of the program addresses to the needs of students who aim to return back to the professional work but with a vastly enlarged set of concerns.

In the context of architectural education in contemporary India

Architectural education in India is heavily prejudiced in favor of the professional and the vocational concerns. Most schools lay far greater emphasis on skills at the expense of inquiry. As a result the programs that these schools follow is rarely geared towards equipping graduates with the necessary critical tools required for them to take up teaching as a profession. However, with the proliferation of schools in the last two decades, a large number of these graduates do enter teaching but without the pedagogical perspective they end up perpetuating the professional preoccupations. As a consequence not only we have a dearth of good teachers in the country but also a crucial culture of criticism is missing to keep the profession on edge. A program attempting to balance between profession and discipline and whose curriculum embraces methods of inquiry is needed to meet these challenges.

In Global context

There is an increasing awareness among the global community of India’s potential to provide a significant alternative world-view to the dominant rational / scientific view championed by the West. Ironically, while much of India’s youth is looking towards the West for cultural clues, a significant number of young students from Europe, America and the rest of Asia are seeking meaningful educational avenues in India. So far this efforts have been limited to short term exchange programs with a number of Indian schools. There is a need to offer a full grown program with an attached degree to these global students.

4. The Intellectual Capital

The pedagogical concerns listed above and the nature of the program calls for an interdisciplinary faculty well versed in humanities, social and natural sciences, technology as well as design. While individual members of the group may have interest and expertise in any of the above fields, each should be open to explore links and connections across the fields. Above all they should possess a healthy disrespect for certainties.

As the program details and curriculum make clear that the quality of faculty, their commitment and their involvement in evolving the program as it unfolds will be the most crucial factors towards the success of the program. The actual curriculum charted below will ultimately have to be tailored to the availability of right faculty. The Institute / university will have to spare no effort / resources to ensure this.

The faculty will be in four categories;

1. A small number (3-4) of core faculty dedicated to the Program.
2. Faculty drawn from the existing under graduate and graduate programs of the CEPT University.
3. Visiting faculty from various institutions and professional offices in the city. And
4. In addition to the above special guests (2-3) will be invited, from other cities, every semester for specific lectures / presentations in the areas related to the ongoing themes / thrusts of the courses. These will be predetermined and will be part of the semester schedule.

5. Students

The Program will accept a small number of 6-10 students every semester.

The prospective candidates will have to be highly motivated and educable in the field of design. For that they will have to pass through a rigorous interview / test. The test will be designed to bring out motivation, openness and research aptitude. Ideally the students should be keen observant of places, things and situations around them and possess an ability to articulate abstract ideas both verbally and through visual language.

They should be aware and concerned about the world and the events around them and want to do something to make it better through the medium of design.

The institute will strive for a pan-Indian and preferably international pool of young students. It will reflect the cultural, social and economic plurality of the country.

6. The curriculum

Semester one
Course No.	Course name	Credits
HTCD 101	Theories of architecture cluster TOA seminar (Influential Philosophies) Non-Western World view Conference	3 3
HTCD 102	Studio 1	6
TCD 500..	Elective	3
Total		15
Semester Two
Course No.	Course name	Credits
HTCD 201	Historiography Cluster Historiography seminar History and Criticism Workshop Conference	3 3
HTCD 202	Studio 2	6
HTCD 500..	Elective	3
Total		15
Semester Three
Course No.	Course name	Credits
HTCD 301	Criticism cluster Criticism seminar Modernism & the 20th. Century. Conference	3 3
HTCD 601	Arch. Pedagogy (TA-ship)*
HTCD 302	Studio 3	6
HTCD 500..	Elective	3
Total		15
Semester Four
Course No.	Course name	Credits
HTCD 602	Arch. Pedagogy (TA-ship)*
HTCD 401	Dissertation / Project	12
HTCD 500..	Elective	3
Total		15

Note: * During semester 3 and 4, students will work as teaching assistants with studio critics in the undergraduate programs of architecture. This carries no credits but is prerequisite for the award of the degree.

7. Core Courses

Theories of architecture cluster

• Theories Seminar: The seminar will address the relationship between the architect and culture, with particular reference to present time. Its point of departure will be to consider as inadequate the traditional depiction of architectural history as being an autonomous series of individual productions and the history of architecture as a production of cultural determinism (in the Marxist sense) as unjustifiable. It will cover philosophical, methodological and historical issues and suggest that such an analytical approach to the present condition should help to achieve standards of judgment both to account for the history of the past and present and to inform the practice of architecture.
• Influential Philosophies.
• Part one: (A series of lectures by guests)
  The course will discuss key philosophies which directly or indirectly have affected the thinking and cultural approaches which underline the writing of history and the production of architecture of twentieth century. It may start with the Kantian enterprise and with reaction and developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The presentations may include discussions of Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Darrida, Foucault and Habermas.
• Part two: Non-Western Worldview
  This course will explore issues of modernity, development and transformation as manifest in the built environment and contemporary architecture of the non-western world. Yet, the encounter with the non-western world is expected to be less an end in itself than the beginning of a reflective process calling into questions all western perceptions, representations, influences and interventions transforming the world since the last two centuries. The objective is not to offer a descriptive survey of the architecture of ‘exotic’ lands but to install an awareness which can be a critical basis to redefine issues and reformulate questions preoccupying the architectural culture at large. It intends to question and demystify, rather than perpetuate the sharp, polarizing mental structure of Western Vs. non-western.

Historiography Cluster

• Historiography seminar: This seminar will examine the significance of major theoretical positions in historical thinking which have affected cultural history and produced some of the dominant intellectual directions of the twentieth century. These positions include Vico, Croce, Benjamin, Gramsci, Althusser and Foucault. We shall explore and examine the sources of major theoretical constructs of current architectural ideas.
• History and Criticism Workshop: This is a student presentation and discussion workshop in which selected readings or projects will be discussed and examined. These sessions will also provide opportunities for further examining themes from other seminars and courses.

Criticism cluster

• Architectural Criticism Seminar: The theme of this seminar is the contribution of the critic in the making of architectural discourse from the early nineteenth century to the present day. It will begin with nineteenth century critical debate in Germany, France and England, followed by the architectural Modernist programs of the Bauhaus and others, including the post second World Was contributions.
• Modernism and the Twentieth Century: This course addresses the general question of a cultural critique with special relevance to the contribution made by literary criticism. It is centrally concerned with the Modernist Critical enterprise, issues it raises and the debate it produced and continues to produce. The course will address the intellectual movements, individual contributions and significant preoccupations. Included will be discussions on hermeneutics, neo-Marxism, structuralism, linguistic theory, deconstruction and Post-Modernist theory.

Electives

• Philosophy of technology,
• Contemporary Design Approaches,
• Pedagogy,
• In addition students may also choose electives available in the existing undergraduate and post-graduate programs.

Detail out lines of these courses may be provided later.

Studio sequence

The primary thrust of the studio sequence is exploration (as opposed to problem solving). Two underlying ideas characterize the work of studios. One, design is an inherently humanistic enterprise and is value loaded. (as opposed to merely technical or one concerned with being a reaction to client's demands). An architect has the obligation to question what might be appropriate or supportive of the situation and, at the same time, be aware of the implicit values of the society, which might support (or be likely to oppose) a particular design decision. And two, that each design situation is replete with positions, contentions and contingent prejudices which need to be laid bare so that design emerges as a form of critical inquiry on those situations.

The methodology for such exploration will be “Reflective Action”. It begins with “explore through architecture the “idea of say a school” as opposed to “design a school with x,y,z, elements”. This is followed by questions such as, "what ought one to do in this situation here-now, that one can support ethically, technically, philosophically, urbanistically, morally, etc". This will be one of the issues to be understood throughout the process of design exploration in the specific situation, not determined before hand by reference to external norms. As reflective action, design explores these situations and seeks to realize their full potential. The aim of this method is to equip and familiarize students with intellectual and methodological tools to question all underlying assumptions, values and precedents which usually characterize conventional design actions.

• Studio 1: Students will undertake 2-3 small projects where the programmatic demands do not form strong precedents or where the formal choices demand a great deal of interpretation and abstraction (e.g. a monument, a “Peace Park”, etc.). The aim of the studio will be to familiarize students with the exploratory method of working more than resolution.

• Studio 2: Each student will critically inquire through design one institution of his/her choice. Students will be encouraged to question and suspend the validity of historically arrived at and taken-for-granted organizational structure and the nature of underlying human relationships. It is hoped that such a deconstruction will open up critical understanding of architectural production being cultural construct. The studio debate will be informed by the work done in the theory and historiography clusters.
• Studio 3: Similar to the previous studio except that the projects will involve significant urban interventions prompting questions regarding the nature of cities and the architecture-city relationship. The studio seeks to advance our understanding of Indian cities and contribute to the existing body of knowledge founded mostly on the study of European cities.

8. Space, Facilities and Infrastructure

Assuming that this program will be instituted within a existing and functioning institution / university, a large part of the physical requirements can be shared. Still, dedicated space for studios, which may also function as seminar spaces, will be needed. To begin with, It is projected that two normal studios, with the undergraduate strength of 30 students, may be easily adapted to house 8-10 students each. This will leave enough room for seminars / lectures etc. However, for longer term needs a couple of well appointed and air conditioned lecture / seminar rooms with audio – visual facilities will be desirable.

In addition following facilities will have to be accounted for.

• Individual rooms and workplace for faculty with Broadband internet connectivity.
• Comfortable hostel / married students accommodation with Broadband internet connectivity.

9. Finance

The financial structure of the program will depend upon whether it is a self-financed or a grant-in-aid program. This status will determine not only the faculty salary (expenditure) structure but also students’ fees (revenue). A more detailed financial proposal may be prepared once this issue is cleared.