Space and discourse interleaved: intertextuality and interpretation in the education of architects

Abstract

This study examines a sequence of instructional work taken from the practice of critique in architectural education. In analyzing the ways in which one instructor assesses and interprets how a group of students have worked with references to other architects and to well-known buildings, the study provides a respecification of notions of interpretation and intertextuality as practical features of design work: design anticipates professional interpretation, and is thus prospectively oriented towards the retrospective ascription of intertextual meanings. The sequence revolves around highly ideologically charged sites. The instructional work around the use of references to these sites highlights the modes of architectural reasoning implicated in the competent handling of ideology in relation to aesthetic expression. Finally, the space of the critique itself is shown as a rich site for the reproduction of architectural knowledge, in which multiple spatial and disciplinary contexts are embedded through representation, discourse, and embodied practice.

Keywords:

• architecture
• education
• interaction
• instruction
• intertextuality
• interpretation
• ethnomethodology

Acknowledgements

The Swedish Research Council has financially supported the research reported here. The work has been carried out within the LinCS center of excellence at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The Network for Analysis of Interaction and Learning has been an invaluable intellectual resource, as well as the PlaceME network organized by Paul McIlvenny. The authors would like to thank Fritjof Sahlström, Ference Marton, and Roger Säljö for their careful readings of previous versions of the text. Finally, they want to acknowledge the incisive input provided by the editors and the reviewers. The responsibility for any remaining errors is, of course, the authors’ own.