Empty
Leonid Furmansky
A Look at the Classroom_March 2023
Learning Space in the COVID Era
Leonid Furmansky
March 2023
Just as there is rarely a definitive, singular answer to the problems we address in our field, there is nothing straightforward or predictable about how and when we develop our architectural knowledge and skills. Learning could take place through our instructors’ sketches and conversations at reviews, or through study models and informal peer feedback exchanged over evening snacks. We often take for granted the classroom spaces where these personal interactions take place.
Architecture schools catalog the chaotic detritus of studio learning: tables covered with scrap material and orphaned model parts, walls of red-lined pin-ups, the burnt smell from laser cutters—alongside pristine final models and drawings from previous semesters. The COVID-19 pandemic turned studio culture on its head, as institutions scrambled to adjust to a new reality of social distancing and virtual learning.
During the Fall semester of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, photographer Leonid Furmansky passed through the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design (by John Burgee and Philip Johnson, 1982), a building that sees nearly 1,000 students today. He captured the unimaginable: a pristine and empty architecture school.
The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Photo by Leonid Furmansky.
The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design.
Photo by Leonid Furmansky.
The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Photo by Leonid Furmansky.
The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Photo by Leonid Furmansky.
The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Photo by Leonid Furmansky.