Between Regulation Mechanisms and Professional Essentials: Exploring Current Challenges in Architectural Education

As new technologies and organizational arrangements establish in the market for building design, these developments represent important changes – for design practitioners as well as for the institutions responsible for the education of designers. We explore the tension between current mechanisms that aim to regulate the production of architects and architecture, and the fundamental tenets that characterize the profession. Providing data from a Danish school of architecture based on the Beaux-Art tradition, we use actor-network theory as a lens to explore how these mechanisms produce requirements that challenge the traditional understanding of knowledge and methodology in architectural training. While architects are reliant on their ability to act according to market conditions, they are concurrently obliged to work according to the essential tenets of their discipline. The article offers empirical illustrations and considerations of this dilemma facing the profession of architects and their practices, which is provisionally discussed in the light of a contemporary educational initiative.