Learning in the ‘Real’ World: encounters with radical architectures (1960s– 1970s)

Journal article, 2017

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s architectural education saw to the emergence of radical attempts to reconnect pedagogy with ‘the real world’ and to forge greater social responsibility in architecture. From this epoch of important political, social, and environmental action, this article discusses three ‘encounters’ between architecture and pedagogy with the aim to study how architecture can contribute to learning innovation. While the International Design Conference held in Aspen in 1972, shows how architects and educators explored the potential of the city as a learning resource, architect Cedric Price’s radical proposals for mobile forms of learning, demonstrate the importance of visionary imaginations. Finally, revolutionary-anarchist architects and planners of the time, including Colin Ward and Brian Anson, experimented with the empowering potential of education. Via these three encounters, this article highlights the role of imagination and experimentation, typically associated with architecture, in triggering societal and pedagogical change.