I finally finished all my work for the University of Chicago master's program and am just waiting to graduate this Saturday. Very exciting indeed. In the meantime I have started looking at PhD programs in architecture. It seems that there are a very small number of programs that have a cultural component to them, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and with a somewhat different program, North Carolina State University. At least those are the programs that I have found so far. Right now I am also working on a possible dissertation topic, of which I'm leaning towards doing a historical look at social factors in architecture from the late 1940s to today. Unlike the University of California at Berkeley's Conference entitled Death and Life of Social Factors, I do not believe that social factors have in any way died in architecture, just morphed. Moreover I am curious as to why social factors seem to have this slow change in architecture as opposed to the growth that other design fields have seen over the same time period.
While looking into these PhD programs I have been reading a really interesting book called the Fountainheadache: The Politics of Architecture-Client Relations by Andy Pressman which I will be writing a critique of once I am finished (this may be a while as my parents are coming into town on Thursday and I'm leaving for New Jersey next week).
Throughout my reading and looking into PhD programs my meetings have started up again. I have a meeting very shortly with Avigail Sachs and have started taking a class at IIT entitled Mapping Neighborhoods with Monica Chadha. After class yesterday Monica and I got together to discuss anthropology's role in architecture. As with everyone I have spoken to thus far, Monica agrees that as an anthropologist I have a lot to contribute to the field of architecture. She was explaining to me that while there are individuals who teach at the college level with no PhD in Architecture it very much makes sense for me to get my PhD as I do not wish to be a practicing architect. Unfortunately there has been some question recently as to whether my program at the University of Chicago will support me in my PhD decisions, as they (like most who aren't architects) do not entirely understand the connection. However, I am hoping to change their mind in yet another meeting discussing my intentions with the program director.
Also in our meeting Monica and I discussed two distinct connections between anthropology and architecture. One is the community development which a section of architects have started pursuing, groups like Public Architecture, Rural Studio, Design Build Bluff, etc. Similarly, Monica's class at IIT gets me involved with how anthropology helps architects look at an area from the neighborhood level, a level that is very familiar to many anthropologists. However there is an entirely different segment of architecture which I also wish to embrace, that is the traditional practice of architecture. This is an area of architecture which architects do not typically understand the connection to anthropology in the beginning. This is the area which I wish to train architects to be better at, and more valued in, the work that they already do. I do not wish to change the traditional practice of architecture at all. In fact I only wish to make it stronger by teaching methods that architects need to use in the practice already, which strangely enough are not taught in MArch or BArch (Masters in Architecture or Bachelors in Architecture) programs, such as interviewing, observation, working with peoples of different cultures and possibly even business techniques. In order to get more involved in this I believe my first step must be to shadow an architect.
