Paper presented at the conference Les années 1968 et la formation des architectes. Perspectives internationales. Cité de l’architecture de Paris, France.
Abstract
At the beginning of the 60s, there were only three architecture schools in Spain –Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville– whose curricula no longer included entrance exams or introductory courses; the 5 years degree was followed by the Final Project. The university atmosphere was turbulent; Strikes and demonstrations were regular both for Franco’s dictatorship political reasons and for pedagogical demands inspired by the glances abroad. In Valencia, architecture was taught in a similar way to the rest of schools since 1965. However, in 1969, the Instituto Politécnico Superior(a new university integrating the degrees of Civil, Industrial, and Agricultural Engineering, plus Architecture) was created, and the government experimented with an ‘innovative’ curriculum which combined all degrees’ subjects during the first four semesters. Engineering and architecture students shared classroom and lessons, under the trendy belief that an exchange of knowledge would occur within the boundaries of the disciplines. The architecture school of Valencia became a two-headed organism for some years. Two confronted teaching strategies coexisted in the same institution: one was traditional but revolted, due to the ’68 moment’, the other was inspired by new teaching theories. In addition, each of them was taught in different venues: one in the city centre, the other on the new campus in the suburbs. The facts reconstruction through unpublished sources (testimonies, academic works, students’ publications, institutional archives…) reveals two pushed aside student environments and shows the successes and the failures of each one of the architectural pedagogies.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lHI0xz4to?start=797&w=560&h=315]
