Tracing Hegel’s Philosophy and Thoughts in Educational Styles of Architecture Design Studios

Abstract

This paper aims to trace the influences of Hegel’s philosophical thoughts and ideas on the architecture design studios’ activities. Hegel is a key figure in the modern history of philosophy that lived in the time of establishing Beaux Art on the skeleton of Academie d’Architecture. Despite the many developments in different areas of education, seemingly, there are still some common grounds between Hegelian philosophy and architecture design studio activities that need to be highlighted and criticized. Content analysis and storytelling based on the structured observation applied in this research to compare two foundations. The results reveal four connections between Hegelian philosophy and architecture design studio activities, including precedents studies and historical dialectic, learning by doing and self-consciousness, crits (critiques) and idealism, and master-apprentice and master-slave theories, respectively. The findings highlight that activities in architecture design studios regenerate through studios, which run based on traditions, disciplines, and styles under the influences of Hegel’s philosophy. In conclusion, while Hegelian thoughts spread through successor philosophers in phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, Marxism, and structuralism, education in architecture design studios has continued without the regeneration of ideas.

A new way of social interaction for educational purposes in architecture design studios during the pandemic

“…COVID-19 has resulted in facing the world with an unexpected situation in which the public and private sectors are discovering solutions to the problems (Demir et al, 2021;2023). Particularly, education activities have experienced a new form of teaching and learning based on blended, online, wearing face masks, and social distance (Buldan, 2021;Ersin et al, 2020).…”

“…The design studios are the core space for teaching, learning, and training different subjects by instructors and students to draw architectural projects, present design ideas, and receive comments and critiques from the studio coordinator or invited juries. This process of working with the students in design studios includes a strong background in training art and architecture students in Europe, particularly documented in France with Beaux Art and Ecole Polytechnique (Draper, 1977;Drexler, 1975;Garric, 2017;Griffin, 2022;Tafahomi, 2021a), Bauhaus, and "Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops in the Soviet Union)" (Dizdar, 2015;Tafahomi, 2021a;Tafahomi, 2023).…”

“…Although there are some workshops for carpentry, ceramic, metal, and concrete in some universities, many universities still do all the required activities in the design studios, such as the University of Rwanda (DoA, 2012). The students work for three to five years, dependent on the structure of the education in the design studios to develop their knowledge, skills, and ability in drawing, design, and imagination under the supervision of the master of the design studio (Tafahomi, 2023). The studio activities include a set of teamwork and task arrangements between the students and instructors to work on the specific architectural projects (Franz, 1994;Frayling, 1993) that create sets of discussions, dialogues, and social interaction around one table at an intimate distance (FAED, 2009).…”