Are we architects? - Johan de Walsche

The Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, in collaboration with the Gallery of Architecture Brno and the Student Council of the Faculty of Architecture, invites you to a lecture by architect and educator Johan de Walsche, which is part of the lecture series „Are We Architects? About Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique“. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 26, 2019, at 18:00 in lecture room A310 at the Faculty of Architecture, Poříčí 5, Brno. The lecture will be conducted in English. 



Architectural Education, the Question of the Relationship Between Research and Teaching


University education legitimizes itself through its close link with research. Although there is widespread agreement on the benefits of this connection, it is not clear how it actually works. Especially considering that science is increasingly fragmented into subdisciplines, leading to infinite specialization. In such conditions, it is challenging to understand the benefits of such a connection. 


The Bologna reform emphasizes the establishment of a regular relationship between research and teaching. However, in the case of architectural education, this issue is more complex – the teaching of architecture is based on practice. The backbone of the education is the design studio, not laboratories or libraries. Instead of scientists or academics, the main teaching is provided by practicing architects. 


This lecture will critically question the arguments for connecting research and teaching, demonstrating how the promotion of this connection can lead to difficulties and how the superficial incorporation of research into architectural education can be problematic and lead to adverse situations. However, alongside the risk of excessive academization of the educational program, there also exists the danger of professional practice that insufficiently relies on research.


Johan de Walsche is a civil engineer-architect who teaches and researches at the Faculty of Design Sciences at Antwerp University, where he is the head of the architecture program. In his research, he is interested in the educational philosophy of the design studio and the epistemology of design research, both in academia and in practice. In addition to basic research, Johan de Walsche leads the interdisciplinary research organization ISTT (International Studio for Transformative Territories), where he connects architecture, urban activism, regional planning, management, and heritage conservation in addressing rapid transformations in urban and rural areas in non-Western societies. Since 2016, Johan de Walsche has been the curator of the annual International Design Week (IDW) Re-Act by Design, organized by the Faculty of Design Sciences. He is a member of the EAAE (European Association for Architectural Education) board, where he leads the EAAE Educational Academy. Previously, he was the project leader for the EAAE Architectural Research Charter and the positioning document EAAE Principles and Practices of Architectural Education. Johan De Walsche chaired the first conference of teachers ACSA-EAAE „The Teacher’s Hunch“ on teaching practice and the practice of teaching. Johan de Walsche is a founding member of the international research network ARENA, where he coordinates DR_SoM (Design Research, Series on Methods) – a continuing series of symposia and seminars on architectural design research. He was a partner in the research project NeST (New Schools of Thought), which addresses responses to the homogenization of architectural education. Currently, he is a partner in the Erasmus + Key Action 2 project Afterlife of Architecture: Multisectoral Impact of Architectural Qualification. Johan de Walsche is involved in several conferences and expert commissions on design and artistic research and on validating unwritten research outcomes.



Are We Architects? About Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique

In the last fifteen years, the education of architects has been subjected to dual pressures. One direction stems from the recalibration of the institutional framework of higher education and is associated with what is sometimes referred to as the „research turn“. In response to increasing demands and performance in research, schools of architecture and design have reacted with a vaguely articulated approach known as „research by design“. This „jump“ clearly highlights the epistemological divide between architecture and more methodologically anchored scientific disciplines that conduct research without adjectives. Essentially the same problem, which this time comes from the outside, is commonly formulated as the problem of theory and practice. This direction of critique often points to the detachment of architectural education from real problems and the applicability of architectural research to real life. The question of relevance is precisely the acupuncture point that connects doubts about the relationship between academia and architectural practice, as well as doubts about the relevance of the architectural profession to contemporary „Society“. In this way, the epistemological question about the nature of architectural education and research becomes an ontological question: How do we, as architects, relate to the surrounding world and what role do we want to play in it?


The lecture series „Are We Architects? About Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique“ is held with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the statutory city of Brno, and the Czech Architecture Foundation.