Architectural History and the Studio.

Architectural history and studio design represent different strands of mainstream architectural education. History is concerned with facts researched, filtered and presented by historians using a method largely shaped and safeguarded by academic publishers. Though professional courses require validation, studio teaching is usually less confined. Indeed, tutors often encourage their students to abandon convention in pursuit of ever new creative concepts. This book of collected essays, written mainly by architectural history teachers in UK schools of architecture, explores the ways in which history can invigorate and potentially enrich project briefs and design thinking in the studio.

As many of the contributors are themselves architects, and sensitive to how knowledge is assimilated and employed in the studio, none of them defends the quasi-scientific methods often adopted by mainstream historians. Instead, they propose different ways in which history may be and has been integrated into the studio environment. A considerable range of intellectual viewpoints is represented, backed by educational experiences and experiments. Inevitably, some presentations are more convincing than others. Most problematic for this reviewer is Katerina Ruedi's assertion, that to make history work in the studio, objectivity and truth must necessarily be substituted for ideology and story-telling. More positive is the notion forwarded by several others that history can offer a structure and focus for design projects, without being subverted in the process. This book will assist those who believe that the studio would benefit from more rigorous thinking.