Why There Is No Such Thing as “The Real World”

In 1947, Le Corbusier wrote, "I have never been able to accept the instruction of the schools for the simple reason that I have a 6ad character/'1 I was struck by this phrase for two reasons. First, because I think that it is precisely that "bad character" that made him a great student of architecture and ultimately a great, albeit unaffiliated, teacher. But my other thought was how much this contrary comment corresponds to my hesitation in joining the AIA. Le Corbusier, of course, was thinking of the doctrinaire and conservative practices of the Ecole des BeauxArts with its self-sustaining and exclusionary claims to the "truth about architecture." In my case, I have bridled at the AlA's regulatory claim on the profession and the education of architects. But it may be that I have a bad character, too. So, what exactly did Le Corbusier mean here? First, I think he was referring to his discomfort with institutions that appear to spend more time establishing rules and regulations than in discovering the contingent and life-affirming exceptions to rules and regulations. I also know he did not like diplomas with their "signatures and flattering emblems." He underscored this by declaring, "I know quite well that later on, when the students are thrust into real life, they are forced to acquire a different diploma: that of reality/'2 While I suspect we all know what he was driving at, this does provoke the question: Where exactly had the students been, if not in "real life?" It is this peculiar and pervasive trope, "the real world," which I want to visit here. The notion of a real world has been the shibboleth of the architectural profession in the long-standing and mutually confusing education wars, conjuring a number of the now-familiar dichotomies that have come to characterize the combatants: theory versus practice, knowledge versus experience, ideality versus physicality, and designing versus making. But how useful has this call to the real world been, really? Not very, I think. This cleaving of existence into the real versus whatever its alternative might be the false, the inauthentic, the illusionary, the unreal has only served to devalue the importance of teaching and learning while raising up the specter of a retributive professional life. It calls into question the very validity of intellectual endeavor in our field and injects a moralizing ethic into any quest for understanding of it. But let me continue, for the moment, with a still remarkably fresh jibe from Le Corbusier. "I admire," he says, "the dazzling manual skill acquired by the students through their instruction at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. ... I recognize the elegance, which guides the solutions of plan, facade, and section. But, I should like to see intelligence dominating elegance and not being disregarded."3 "Design has killed architecture," he continues. "Design is what they teach in the schools ... the school kills; the school kills by being shut off far from crafts and materials. Reality is lacking."4 Again, Le Corbusier's rhetorical point is clear. This idea of the real world reminds students once more of their poor decision making in choosing to attend architecture school and dissuades anyone in their right mind from any interest in teaching in one. But, while I think his reaction against the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was legitimate, I also think he was somewhat careless with language in his attack on what he called "the Academy." For it is this notion of "the Academy" that also validates the notion of the "real world." Both are abstractions, misleading generalizations that neatly but reductively bundle up systems of perceived value and set the stage for discursive and unproductive tirades. Architecture is the only discipline I can think of that has so consistently experienced this battle between its academic world and its professional (or so-called real) world. Does this happen in medicine, law, or business? I think not. Teaching architecture has always been problematic because there is the assumption that the object or goal of this education is professional competence in the material design and making of a building, and yet most students spend three or more years attempting this not even once. This is unlike other professional disciplines, such as medicine or law, where the professional education provides direct hands-on testing of one's facility to practice. And it is for this reason that I suggest to students that we do NOT teach them to do architecture but rather teach them to THINK about doing architecture. Later, when they become professionals they will learn how to do it in the true sense. In my judgment, this is what good schools have always done. Good schools are typically speculative in the sense that they take seriously the fundamental goal of gathering up knowledge to facilitate social change. They are, by nature, contentious, experimental, and critically reflective about the world as given. Most significantly, they are future oriented quite simply because, for students, the future is the only possible real world. In a redemptive turn, for me, Le Corbusier later begins to distinguish between the Academy as social abstraction and teaching as social practice. He says, "Learning? That is the joy of every day, the ray of sunlight in life."5 1 would not be hostile to the School if the commentary went thus: