Making and breaking authorship, potentials in architectural design studio

Architectural authorship is a fundamental yet puzzling issue that underpins the discipline's ethical, political and social stance with implications not only on the practical, artistic and intellectual qualities of architectural outcomes, but also on the humanistic concerns and practices that architectural processes evoke in a range of societal scales. As a primordial and ossified principle of architectural discipline, authorship, and all its reformulations, needs to be repeatedly scrutinized in all facets of architectural thinking and production, including architectural education, for its inherently complex, diverse and fluctuating nature and resultant impacts. The primary aim of this thesis is to inquire the role of architectural education, specifically of architectural design studio, in the ways in which conventions of architectural authorship are built and challenged. By critically unveiling architectural design studio's hidden or explicit pedagogical agendas, strategies and methods in making and breaking authorial constructs, it is expected to shed light on creative and social potentials which otherwise may be overshadowed by conventional authorship culture that dominates architectural production. The thesis dwells on two hypotheses; first that culture of architectural education in general is still widely governed by conventions based on 15th century construction of the singular-heroic-genius "author" figure of the architect, and second that architectural design studio, located at the heart and head of architectural education, is a pedagogical instrument where authorship roles, relationships and performances are constructed and exercised long before architectural practice. Based on these hypotheses, it is aimed to scrutinize, understand and criticize how architectural design studio pedagogically performs in building, maintaining (making) as well as alternating and diffusing (breaking) certain authorship norms. In the light of authorship question, it is intended to execute a critical inquiry on the reformulations of authorship and disclose potentials of architectural education that are often suppressed by conventional authorship norms outlived through the rituals of traditional design studio culture. Construction of the architect as an author figure has been foundational for architecture becoming an autonomous discipline and its consequent institutionalization since 15th century. Architectural culture has long been deployed by a network of author-related concepts such as authorship, authority, authenticity and authorization that define, build and prevail a cultural, social, economical and legal ecosystem in which rights, benefits and responsibilities of the architect are governed in accordance with prevalent norms and paradigms. Although the quest for authority has preserved its centrality in architectural discipline, the legally prescribed and structured authorship norms have not always been competent with the complexity of architectural knowledge, nor the collective, multi-layered nature of architectural practice. Particularly in the light of technologically driven, socio-economic and cultural paradigm changes of the 20th century, deep power structures regarding the governance and proprietorship of cultural and intellectual commons are put into question. Inspired by the crisis on authorship conventions, a growing tendency has forced the exploration of alternative modes of authorship in various creative fields, including architecture, and consequently in architectural design studio. This research relocates architectural design studio, an epitome of architectural discipline and culture, in a vectorial field of forces raided both by the authoritarian urges to control, govern and dominate, and by the counter forces that expose, dissolve, transform and transgress the stiffened disciplinary boundaries of architectural knowledge and its practices. Mainly, the research interest on architectural authorship in design studio culture dwells on three grounds; first, the efforts that build and maintain the conventional singular heroic figure-of-the-architect, second, the critical inquiries into alternative authorial practices in architectural education stirred by the authorship question, and third, an investigation of both efforts conjoined and entangled in an amalgamated evaluation and criticism. Beginning with an inquiry into the making of authorship in architectural design studio, the thesis initiates with a theoretical and historical background on architectural authorship in which fundamental concepts from the two fields of architecture and authorship are surveyed in relation. By selecting and matching four sets of concept pairs from both fields, the paradigms behind the formation of architectural authorship are conceded, revealing the latent and unquestioned relationships, intentions, motivations and the role of myths, disciplinary and institutional regulations etc. in their establishment. Followingly, traditional studio culture is examined in its conventional utilization of pedagogical instruments, design tools, environments, relationships, myths and rituals in developing authorship-related behaviors. Benefiting from the educational concept of hidden-curriculum, architectural design studio's authorship-related conventions are deciphered, outlined and discussed in detail. The third chapter investigates design studio pedagogies that challenge, transform and break authorship conventions in the light of authorship question. A literature review on critical theory and creative practices complement and contextualize design studio pedagogies that are influenced by similar practices and discourses, as well as critics such as Benjamin, Barthes, Foucault, Eco. As a survey method, authorship-challenging concepts from various creative practices are collected in a lexicon and placed on a polar map for a collective reading of tendencies, densifications, divergences and polarizations of modes, methods, tools, characters etc. of alternative authorship practices. Subsequently, the inquiry is redirected into architectural design studio practices that attempt to alternate architectural authorship. A selection of 1930's onwards architectural design studio instances from various cultural or geographies contexts, that question, challenge or alternate conventional singular-genius-heroic figure-of-the-architect are collected and scrutinized by way of investigating which authorship-related design studio convention they challenge(strategy) and how they challenge it(tactics). These instances are grouped according to their strategic aims and employment of tactics that serve them. Evaluating these instances reveal the multiplicity and complexity of counter-positions to conventional architectural authorship in design studio. Although the study launches on a dialogical separation between making and breaking authorship for practical reasons, these two agendas are not considered as a dichotomy, but as a complex, intertwined and evolutionary continuum. It is considered that historical continuities of architectural design studio culture substantially coexist and collide with radical breaks from it. Therefore, on the fourth chapter, findings from separately handled perspectives (chapters) are amalgamated into a complex cross-relational chart, revealing a multitude of intertwined viewpoints and approaches, which allow the research question to be critically re-evaluated and discussed in a holistic manner. Eventually, based on the overall inquiries in this thesis, it is debated that the notion of authorship, as an invented socio-economic mechanism, needs to be rethought both in its predicaments and potentials for architectural knowledge, its social, ethical, political implications and expendable array of actions. It is speculated that at this intersection of architecture, authorship and education, the future of architectural authorship and architectural design studio pedagogy are prone to diverse new possibilities, yet each reiteration of authorship needs to be skeptically received to ensure potential openings in architectural culture.