Design Teaching at ETH
Architect  Manabu Chiba

The Department of Architecture of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zurich) is located on a hill slightly less than 30 minutes by tram and bus from the city center. This is a beautiful hill that offers a superb view of Zurich, but at the same time the cows eating grass beside the gleaming stainless steel sash building give the setting a somewhat humorous touch. I taught classes there at what now seems a somewhat foolhardy pace of once every three weeks. Each time I saw this view, I felt a quiet excitement and at the same time a feeling of peace, as if I had just returned to my second hometown. In this environment, far from the hustle and bustle of the city, I debated architecture with students inside a shack-like school building named Papillon (French for butterfly). (One of these shacks is assigned to each studio.) This happy environment was enough to make me forget even my jet lag.
In general, design classes at ETH Zurich are taught using the studio system. Some 20 teachers, including teachers like myself who had been invited from overseas, proposed the topics ourselves. The students freely selected a topic and immersed themselves thoroughly in that topic. Some studios had students design classical architectural styles, while others placed the main emphasis on computer graphics. The topics were truly wide-ranging: some involved urban design on a grand scale, and others dealt with the design of ultra-tall skyscrapers. The instruction also had depth: about once a week, the teacher and three assistants would have the 20-odd students of the studio draw sketches one after another. The course also included a study tour called Seminar Week in the middle of the semester. And the final critique featured presentations held in various locations at the school, with a wide array of special guests. It was an enviable teaching and learning environment.
Graduation from ETH Zurich is, in and of itself, qualification as an architect, so students were very aware of the importance of work performance. Show them an exposed concrete or glass-walled building and you would immediately be bombarded with questions about what kind of insulation would be provided and so on. At times I found this attitude irritating and even told them that they should try to be more free in their thinking. But after seeing the designs of the Japanese students, who fall all over themselves trying to come up with a proposal that is interesting, I found it quite refreshing. And I think this attitude of the students leads directly to the nature of the architecture in the city. You can walk anywhere in the city and encounter high quality buildings that are innocuous but are rooted firmly in the area and its traditions. This is in contrast to places like Japan, where you will find some interesting buildings but also a lot of terrible ones.
It is not a question of which is better. Switzerland and Japan have a high degree of awareness of things such as aesthetics and quality that will resonate with both and which both can share. But at the same time, they have at their core a completely different attitude toward education and sense of vocation. This is a relationship in which things that seem similar are completely different, and things that appear to be different are pointing in the same direction. So, naturally, I think that close ties and interchange between ETH Zurich and universities in Japan, on the part of not only students but the faculty as well, will be a happy circumstance for both students and teachers. Recently my private daydream has also expanded to include the thought that if ETH Zurich and my university joined hands to create a school of architecture, it would surely be the mightiest school of architecture in the world.