ABSTRACT
The ‘crit’ or project review is a form of teaching to which schools of architecture have subscribed for decades, and this historical continuity would seem to suggest that in the past it has been a successful mode of transmitting the knowledge and skills of the architect to the next generation of the profession. But as Vowles indicates in Chapter 26, continuity of a social institution may reflect more than functional effectiveness. It can also reflect broader social processes such as the exercise of power and influence. Thus, for example, the review is an established mode of teaching, whereby students learn from tutors’ comments on their own and their peers’ work. But it may also be a means of ensuring the recruitment to architecture of students of a certain personality type or artistic inclination, thereby preserving design traditions.
