Introduction

This is the only course of its kind. Taught by established architectural writers in a city that is a centre of global architectural culture, it is designed for two main groups of students: those with professional architectural qualifications who wish to pursue careers as teachers, writers and journalists; and graduates in English, history or a social science who have become interested in architecture through writing and teaching.

The course offers a practical, vocational approach which concentrates specifically on writing and on the media in which writing is a core skill. Students are encouraged to read widely and write copiously in order to find their writing voices.

Other communication skills are also taught. For example, an important part of the course is writing for the internet and the appropriate use of that medium for the dissemination of architectural ideas. The course opens up opportunities among architectural, journalistic, academic, cultural and media employers who are looking for people with a knowledge of architecture and the skill to articulate that knowledge.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching is mainly by lecture (including guest lectures by well know architectural writers) seminar, writing workshop and live project.

Course content

There are five core modules:

Writing about architecture

The module provides a comprehensive view of the opportunities facing a writer about architecture, defining the main ways of writing about the subject and exemplifying them in carefully chosen texts by a variety of outstanding writers. The module encourages students to experience the writing firsthand, involving them in a structured series of practical experiments in the various modes of writing.

Architectural publication

This module explores the material history of the discipline of architectural writing through its main forms of publication, from academic tomes, through exhibition catalogues, practice-oriented journals, magazines and newspapers, to web-based daily news. It examines the various roles and skills within the industry, such as the publisher, editor, free-lance journalist and curator, and the expectations of different kinds of readers.

Media

The theoretical foundation of the module is the (contested) idea of the ‘voice’ in writing and how it is shaped by different forms of media as well as cultural expectations. The module focuses on the impact of new media on architectural writing. Students experiment with writing for different media, including television, radio, digital media and the internet, as well as the art of writing in relation to visual images, sound and aural environments.

Interpretations

This module explores the creative act of writing about a complex architectural subject such as London. By presenting a familiar but impossibly large and complex subject, the module aims to encourage students to think creatively. It is about building new connections between things rather than learning to reiterate existing partitions. The aim is to help students determine a balance between the weight of detailed facts and given arguments, and their own conceptual leaps and critical judgments.

Dissertation

This module gives students the opportunity to research and write an extended, book-chapter length dissertation on an architectural topic of their choice. It is important that the dissertation should be the result of a genuine enquiry and that it should say something worthwhile about its topic. But it is also important that it be a piece of writing of the highest quality, that it should be conscious of its audience and of the circumstances of its possible publication. The quality of the writing is a more than usually important criterion in the assessment of the module.

Options

In addition to the core modules, a range of option modules is offered, including The Question of Technology, The Forgetting of Air, Cinema and the City, The Problem of Irony, Concepts of Space and The Soundscape of Modernity. These options are shared with MA WAA’s sister course, MA Architectural History, Theory and Interpretation.

Attendance

The course can be taken full time, two days per week for one year, or part time one day per week for two years.

Tutors

The Following are tutors of core modules:

Colin Davies

Prof. Colin Davies is an architect, historian and writer. A former editor of the Architects Journal, he is the author of many books, including High Tech Architecture, The Prefabricated Home, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century and Thinking About Architecture, as well as monographs on the work of Norman Foster, Michael Hopkins and Nicholas Grimshaw. He writes regularly in architectural publications worldwide. 

Dr Helen Mallinson

Helen Mallinson is a teacher, designer and writer and has been working in ASD in a variety of capacities for nearly thirty years – from studio tutor to head of school to lecturer in history and theory. She recently completed a PhD at the London Consortium on the history and philosophy of air in seventeenth century science and is currently writing about ideas of air in architecture including architecture and the emotions, notions of agency, rhetoric and the voice, enthusiasm, and theories of underground.

Joseph Kohlmaier

Joseph Kohlmaier studied architectural history and theory at the ASD, where he now teaches as a senior lecturer. Joseph has an interest in the role sound plays in our perception of place and is director of Musarc, a choir and research project at the faculty that explores architecture through listening. He is also the director of graphic design studio Polimekanos and has many years experience in publishing and design, particularly for the internet. With Hyphen Press, Joseph recently published the first English edition of O.F. Bollnow's Human space, taking on the role of both editor, writer and designer.