ABSTRACT
The current social reckoning in the United States and around the world requires architectural education to assess how its pedagogies and curricula perpetuate systemic racism towards black, indigenous, and other people of colour, and to make amends. Imported from the École des Beaux-Arts, the critique, or “crit”, has remained the predominant form of student evaluation in architecture programmes in the United States since the formalisation of architectural education in the late 1800s. Tracing the evolution of the École model in the US, this chapter positions ongoing discussion about the relative merits of the crit within the context of the present-day appeal for anti-racist practices. Although Beaux-Arts traditions may have met the needs of nineteenth-century architecture students – a predominantly white, male, and wealthy group – they are insufficient today. As a profession, architecture has a moral and ethical obligation to serve the public. Educators must confront the insular nature of our programmes by facilitating more interdisciplinary collaboration and community engagement. To break the chains of the École, a new paradigm of architectural education is needed.
