Tag Archives: Education

Franck Speaks at Boston’s Pella Pro Expo

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Speaking at the Pella Pro Expo in Boston yesterday, at the TD Garden was terrific fun. Thanks to Pete Miller at Restore Media for developing this break-out educational content at the 2011 Pella Pro Expos. While I didn’t do a head count we had a packed room that I estimate held about 200 folks, nearly all architects. My lectures focused on the relevance of classical architecture to contemporary American domestic architecture and a second session on marketing tactics with a particular focus on social networking.

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Designing in Atlanta

Last night at the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in Atlanta, Brent Hull and I lectured on our new book Winterthur Style Sourcebook: Traditional American Rooms. The event was organized by the ICA&CA Southeast Chapter, and sponsored by Randall Brothers. Thank you! Today we’re teaching a seminar on classical design and good practice in millwork at Historical Concepts’ wonderful office. High up on the 4th floor, our students are hard at work on an esquisse for a classical interior. The deadline is an hour away! It’s great to see such talent and focus from these terrific architects and designers.

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Architecture Students at Work

This past Friday, in nine straight hours of intense work, my graduate architecture students at Notre Dame completed their first esquisse, en loge, designing a hypothetical urban residence which they will develop over the next four weeks.  Being well-taught by Professor Richard Economakis and the other dedicated Notre Dame faculty, these first year graduate students with only a semester of architectural education under their belts, performed admirably!  What a rare joy it is to have an architecture school that teaches students architecture, instead of abstract, incomprehensible, inconsequential, personal expression.  Hope you enjoy these pictures of my delightful students hard at work creating beautiful, meaningful, appropriate architecture.

Diversity in Education

Experiencing diverse points of view elucidates the strengths and weaknesses of each, reveals their common ground and allows one to discover how each may be improved. In recent years I’ve had just such an experience teaching design studios in two schools of architecture influenced by different traditions: one Modernist, the other Classical.(1) Teaching the same design problem in different settings, I have found students with quite varied knowledge, skills and deficits. From this I am certain that the future will be best served if architectural education draws from both the wisdom of tradition and the lessons of Modernism.

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