We do not teach the latest transient novelties and fads, whether in design or in technology and materials. We believe it makes no sense to reject more than 2500 years of experience with design, technology, and materials in order to embrace the latest novelties and fads. After all, these are usually served up in the interest of short-term economic considerations, not in order to serve the important and enduring role buildings play in our lives. After all, buildings do play fundamental roles in our lives on both a personal, private level and in a public way. In our program, we stress both of these roles for buildings.
Architecture is in part a private pursuit.
A well-designed building is a credit to its designer and a pleasure to those who encounter it. To invent something new and transient is easier than designing something good and enduring, and ultimately, the good and enduring give pleasure over a longer period of time and to a broader range of people. And architecture is a supremely public art. Unlike other visual arts, for example painting, public support is required for a building to be built, and once built, it cannot be hidden away in private. It must therefore be intelligible to the public, and it must provide the public with some reward, just as any publicly sanctioned act must.