Reading Architecture

“Reading lessons” in architectural form.

Teaching while practicing architecture in Korea allowed Margarita and I to bring our office experience with intern architects into the classroom. Many young architects had mini-desk libraries, in easy reach for pulling images off the page and into a project. Although they were skilled at creating seamless collages, these young graduates had little experience in distilling an idea or architectural ordering principle from precedent.

This project presents a series of “reading lessons” to beginning architecture students to build an architectural rather than formal literacy. Its goals were to instill a broad knowledge of contemporary architecture not fulfilled in their curriculum, and to distance the students from the architectural shorthand we had previously observed. The process encouraged abstract principles and transformations as a means toward an architectural language. Margarita and I collaborated on the design of the problem, and you can see how it developed in sherlock and clouseau.