student spotlight

• Student: Braden Engel
• Director of Studies: Dr. Doreen Bernath
• Second Supervisor: Prof. Ian Strange
• External Advisor: Dr. Teresa Stoppani

Colin Rowe (1920-1999) is recognized as one of the most influential architecture teachers of the twentieth century, but which methods made him so influential, and what can his strategies tell us about the pedagogy of uncovering meaning in the built environment? Braden’s dissertation argues that Rowe was a successful teacher because he understood the value of engaging students with modernism’s gift of free invention. Rowe paralleled the promises of modern architecture to faith in Christian salvation, leading his students into the temptations of modernism through historical analyses in order to test their convictions in architecture through design. Rowe’s use of the Bible is thus a key that unlocks both the value of his teaching and our interpretation of his historiography. Braden’s dissertation identifies a different postmodern device deployed by Rowe for each chapter, beginning with irony and paradox, and ending with ambiguity and refutations. The aims of these devices were to produce curious and critical students. These are qualities of relative scarcity today, and Braden hopes his doctoral work enables a more balanced appreciation of Colin Rowe while also serving to rethink attitudes to design education at large.