The Analytics of Power: Re-presenting the Design Jury

What I read

In this article, Webster describes the results of a year-long ethnographic study with architectural students, in which she observed critiques occurring and interviewed students about their experiences. Webster concludes that there is questionable efficacy of the design jury in supporting useful learning.

Webster begins by noting that what happens in an architectural studio is a "black box", but critique through jury is a way to identify some of the activities that, theoretically, help a student become a practitioner. She observed three juries, and interviewed 27 students, as well as some of the critics involved. She then describes the results of her research, in the context of what she calls a "ritual."

She notes that superficial comments from participants describe a "picture of the design jury as a stable and highly valued ritual in the school whose purpose and practices were commonly understood." Participants only "vaguely recalled that the present jury system had evolved from a system of assessment by proxy introduced in the nineteenth-century Ecole des Beaux Arts. However, observations indicate that these comments were not true, and instead that the emphasis of the Jury can best be explored through a lens of power asymmetry. She uses five lenses to illustrate this. Periodicity is described as a way of legitimizing, over time, the role of the critic:

The perception of the jury as a legitimate and ''natural'' part of the passage from novice to expert, fueled by ''folklore'' stories such as Mies van der Rohe ripping students' drawings off the walls and students' own experiences of juries occurring at the end of every design project, had the effect of building up and legitimizing the symbolic power and authority of ''the critic.'

Constituency is visible through the invitations extended to practitioners. Spatiality—placing the critics at the front, aimed at the student—emphasizes a hierarchy. Choreography "ascribed the power of 'judgment' to the critics." Language was used to ensure and assess of a student was assimilated into professional culture. In total, this led to "a kind of 'staging' of power."

Webster describes this staging and performance in more detail. Critical Pedagogy is referenced as describing a critic as a "hegemonic overlord," but primarily for students that were showing weakness or struggle in their work. Students who were better performing academically, and better "performing" in the critique, received more productive or thoughtful reviews. The "unofficial view was that 'weak' students were students who should not be studying architecture at all."

Webster then notes that students have figured out how to react to this consistent structure of critique. They have learned to over-exert themselves in preparation, to listen passively to responses, and to agree with things they don't necessarily understand. As a result, "such strategies clearly negated the possibilities of deep, transformative learning because they suppressed honest reflection, self-doubt, and any admission of not knowing or not understanding."

Three primary strategies were employed by students. Passive compliance was used by students to just "get it over with," and often, students did not actually understand what they were hearing. Active compliance was a more optimistic approach—to do what was said, because it was assumed to be said with best intentions and backed by real knowledge. Active resistance was rarely used, but presented as a way of justifying a position.

Webster ends by summarizing some alternative approaches that she gathered from tutors and students. These include "exhibitions that celebrate the end of projects and disseminate the results to a variety of audiences," special tutor days with experts, peer reviews in small groups, self-evaluation, and post-portfolio assessment tutorials.

What I learned and what I think

I'm starting to gravitate towards a few meaningful perspectives. First, I think the folklore behind all of this "rough critique" is exactly that—lore. I'm having a hard time finding any real indications that Bauhaus, for example, included this way of teaching. I'm a bit through Rainer Wick's book and this is the only real content that I've found with any depth to the real Bauhaus pedagogy, and perhaps reading the Mies section will get me to the idea behind Being Mean as an approach. Itten certainly didn't take that approach, and seemed to err on the other side: everything was wonderful.

Next, I think there's a strong point of conflict around when, how, and if, academia should "weed out" students who just aren't on track to succeed in the profession. It certainly appears that some jurors view the When as "publicly and in a critique," the How as "aggressively," and the If as "absolutely." It's more nuanced than that. There seems to be lots of reasons why a school should urge a student into a different career path, through both discussion and formal grades. I'm not sure why that has to happen in front of everyone—there's no need to "shame" someone out of a program if you can actually "grade" them out (presuming they earn those grades, which rests on an instructor's ability to assess properly, which is questionable….)

A big theme that's emerging for me is the timing of critique. There's plenty on the approach, and I feel like I'm starting to get a good grasp on that part of pedagogical differences. But there's an open question about when a student needs to experience different forms of criticism. Irrespective of how it shows up, what is the point of a critique on the last day of class? A celebration is not a critique, although critique can be celebratory. Having a last-day celebration is a good idea, probably. But any sort of Last Day Experience encourages a lot of the same encultured behaviors—the rush to the finish, the idea that "completion" is important in learning. Is any learning happening through that? And does it matter? There's also very little Last Dayness in design, as projects sort of fizzle out or continue on "forever." Even T&M projects that have a formal end date often… don't.

As a thought exercise, I wonder what it would be like to pretend or assume that a direct, destructive critique is valuable for students in terms of learning. What would that mean, and what would it look like? I can imagine some sort of paper "In Defense Of The Architecture Jury", which would be wonderful clickbait. What would it have in it? (Quick google—it doesn't exist yet.)