The Analytics of Power

Abstract

There can be little argument that the design jury features as a key symbolic event in the education of the architect.1 However, while the centrality of the design jury as a site for learning disciplinary skills, beliefs, and values is now widely acknowledged, there continues to be considerable disagreement about what is learnt and how. While critical pedagogues argue that the design jury is a critic-centered ritual that coerces students into conforming to hegemonic notions of professional identity, the more commonly held conception is that the jury is a student-centered event that supports students in the construction of their own architectural identities.2 This article, inspired by Michel Foucault's studies of relationship between power and the formation of the modern self, reports on the findings of a year-long ethnographic study carried out in one British school of architecture.3 The research sought to unravel the complexities of the design jury as a site of dichotomous power relations, and the findings bring into question the efficacy of the design jury as a ritual that supports useful learning. The article concludes by proposing that the design jury be replaced by a new set of pedagogic events that are carefully constructed to support student learning.

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