Abstract:
The issue that forms the core research of this thesis is the problem of how to proceed with an inquiry into ‘site’ in the context of architectural education. The investigation of this problem does not, however, take a traditional approach. An existing body of educational methodologies in architecture is described, not so that an imperfection can be identified, removed and replaced, but in such a way as to stand outside it. Once outside, the intellectual conditions, both inside and outside the field of architectural education, that have governed the formation of traditional approaches to site, can then become the object of investigation. This form of approach to a problem is Foucauldian. It distinguishes itself from a Platonic form of inquiry in two ways. Firstly by rejecting the assumption that a problem simply appears to an inquirer as if from another world. Secondly, by rejecting the assumption that all existing knowledge is a recollection of an absolute corpus of knowledge and therefore true under all conditions. A Platonic approach would identify problems with traditional methods of proceeding with respect to site in architecture and propose a new contribution to this field that transforms or replaces these methods with alternative ones. The task for a Platonic thesis is, therefore to show how the proposed methods (for proceeding with respect to site) manoeuvre around the problems that have been observed to exist with the traditional methods. Foucault rejects these types of proposition. He argues that all forms of proceeding with respect to a problem will reveal some things, and will filter out other things. The role of an inquiry is thus not to reject existing methods in order to replace them with new ones but rather to reveal the conditions that govern the formation of these methods. The outcome is that an inquirer is in a position to challenge the apparent obviousness of traditional methods and open to the possibility of using other methods. The task of this thesis is to expose limitations that are being placed on the field of architectural education as the result of using traditional methods for approaching site, and thus to question their apparent obviousness. It is argued that traditional methods approach the problem of site ontologically. The question ‘What is site?’ is asked prior to asking the question ‘How should we approach site?’ A Foucauldian form of inquiry is ethical. Its intention is to make the user of a particular method, or approach to a problem, take responsibility for the limitations that are immanent to the method that has been used in an inquiry. The thesis follows Foucault’s methodology in two ways. Firstly, Foucault’s general principle of ‘thought from the outside’ is applied to the problem of site in order to investigate the rules and conditions that have led to ‘site’ being posed, traditionally, as an ontological problem. Secondly, the particular analytical apparatus that Foucault has developed in his book The Archaeology of Knowledge provides the foundation for the development and application of a methodology for exposing limitations that exist in current pedagogical approaches to site in architecture. In Part One of the thesis the Platonic foundations for ontological thought are described. A chronology of six contemporary Western philosophers whose works articulate movements away from ontological thought is also described. The purpose of this part of the thesis is to question whether an ontological approach to site in architectural education should be considered obvious and thus to open a space for an ethical approach to site. In Part Two, observations and descriptions of The Archaeology of Knowledge are used to develop a methodology for analysing, as if from outside, statements that represent thought on site in architectural education. The methodology is developed not only from Foucault’s descriptions of his archaeological method but also from observations of the style and techniques of approach that are evident in the statements that Foucault used as he built his arguments and justified his claims. The purpose of applying this methodology to the problem of site education is to question the apparent obviousness of the pedagogical approaches to site that are in evidence in the statements and to open a space for other approaches to site education. The methodology is applied to three sets of statements. The first set was embodied within a textbook that represents a traditional approach to site in architectural education. The second set of statements appeared in a publication produced by CHASA (Committee of Heads of Australasian Schools of Architecture), whose purpose was to reward new contributions made by academics to the existing body of architectural knowledge. The academic papers analysed described design studio projects with explicit references to ‘site’. These statements are representative of knowledge emerging in accordance with the rules and conditions of the academic institution. The third set of statements was published in the proceedings of the ANYWHERE conference. Participation in the conference was restricted to an architectural avante garde. The conference had ‘site’ as its implicit theme. This set of statements is representative of knowledge that has emerged just outside of the normalising conditions of the academic institutions of architecture. The analysis shows that a Platonic form of inquiry provides the basis for a traditional approach to site in architecture. The CHASA statements reveal an incomplete break from Platonic governance even though the foundational assumptions on which Platonic inquiry is based are explicitly questioned. The analysis of the Anywhere statements shows evidence of a different kind of accumulation of statements. This thesis argues that the difference results from the manner in which some of the participants in the Anywhere conference respond to the conditions placed on them by the fields in which they speak. The condition of participation in the Anywhere conference was the capacity to think outside of the rules and conditions that have caused knowledge in the field of architecture to have emerged as it did in the twentieth century. The last part of the thesis examines the breadth of rules and conditions that are operating on an architectural academic as the result of their practices being required to function within a field of other practices. It is shown that the education of site in architecture is dependent on another set of practices, (political, economic and social practices) that exist at a higher level and in a broader space. These other practices are shown to reduce the volume of the space for new thought that has been opened up by architectural academics questioning the obviousness of ontological approaches to education in architecture. The thesis concludes that the analytical method that has been developed from Foucault’s book The Archaeology of Knowledge has created another ‘voice’ for use throughout the field of architecture, from the particular problem of site education to the broader level of government policy on education. It is also suggested that this ‘voice’ may be usable, not only in the field of architecture, but in any field in which one wishes to think outside what has previously been thought.