Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols.

638-640 (2014) pp 2222-2225 Submitted: 2014-07-29

© (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland Accepted: 2014-07-29
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.638-640.2222 Online: 2014-09-19

Influence on Design Education by the Architectural Trend of

Deconstructivism
Yinan Hu 1, a, YongpingWang 2,b* and Yun Xue3,c
1
Nanjing Tech University, China
2
Nanjing Tech University, China(Corresponding author)
3
Jinling Institute of Technology
a
hyn3739@163.com, b1497980788@qq.com, cyzfslf@jit.edu.cn

Keywords:The ideology of deconstructivisim,design style,deconstructive architects,design

education

Abstract. The ideology of deconstructivisim is a relatively new design style, and has a profound
philosophical connotation. Deconstruction works usually pay attention to reflecting the diversity of
buildings, and their design techniques are more exaggerated and weird to make people unable to
understand their law. By the study of the deconstructive architects' design career, we can conclude
as follow: the kind of trend has a great influence on architecture, also deeply affects modern design
education; education philosophy of many famous architectural colleges in America and Europe with
their students’ design works reflect design concept of the ideology. Southern California Institute of
Architecture in Los Angeles is the homeland that deconstructive educators live up to their ideal. The
design ideology of deconstruction has important status in the United States and far-reaching
influence on American architectural education.

Introduction
Deconstructive architecture emerged in the 1980s, is a stylish design style in the architecture, and
this kind of architectural ideology has a profound philosophical connotation. In the early 1960s, the
philosopher Jacque Derrida proposed the theory of "deconstruction". Deconstruction takes no notice
of the integrity of the structure, but pays more attention to the study of the individual, individual
rather than common biased towards the things. Deconstruction's aim is to build a new order, and it
has some taste of some nothing down, nothing up. This order is not what we usually understand the
special order, but is broad and covering all aspects of human society, even the order of thoughts.
Deconstruction’s ultimate goal is to create the new reasonable order.
The deconstruction critically inherited the modernistic design principles and standards in the
architectural. Deconstruction does not reject some modernism idea, but it is not completely to
accept, but overall break up them and then arrange these elements. The result is appearing new
design method and design principle. The representative figure of the architecture school Hillis
Miller explained the issue more lively. Miller said, ”the deconstruction feels as if the word is to
break the original structure to reconstruction, in the lots of people’s impression, it is like naughty
children breaking home goods into small parts. And the disassembly is very destructive, so
deconstruction is like the naughty boy, destroyed the original order and structure."

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 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 638-640 2223

thepractice of deconstruction in architectural college

The ideology of deconstruction has a great influence on architecture, also deeply affects the modern
design education, education philosophy of many famous architecture college in America and
Europe with their students’ design works reflecting design concept of the ideology, it is shown in
Figure. 1, such as Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and
Preservation, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Southern California Institute of
Architecture (SCI-Arc), etc. Some of the teachers are deconstructive architects in these colleges.
They instill design ideology of deconstruction into the students in the teaching process.

Figure. 1 Students’ design works of deconstruction

Bernard Tschumi is the representative figure of deconstruction in the field of ar-chitectural

theory. He has made ideology of deconstruction into the architectural theo-ry. But Tschumi opposed
to completely abandon the traditional architectural elements. He thinks Deconstruction architecture
still needs to be introduced into some tradition-al architectural concept, which can be combined
together to form a new framework. It can be said that Tschumi makes deconstruction opened the
door to the architecture. He played a very important role in the development of deconstruction.
Tschumi, meanwhile, also has a great contribution to the spread of deconstruction thoughts in
architectural education. Tschumi's teaching experience is very rich. he has been teach-ing in AA
school of architecture in London from 1970 to l980, coming to Princeton University Institute of
Building City in 1976, teaching in the Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1980 to 1983. In
1988, He served as the dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and
Preservation until 2003. Such rich teaching experience makes Tschumi have the original opinion on
architectural educa-tion. He thinks students should have more divergent thinking, and teachers
should not restrict student's thought in the process of teaching.
2224 Progress in Industrial and Civil Engineering III

Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles is the homeland that
deconstruction educators live up to their ideal. Southern California Institute of Architecture is
founded by some teachers and students who are not content with the traditional, orthodox originally
architecture education and left Alma mater. And its founder and a number of veterans, including
Eric Morse, Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi, are the representative figure of deconstruction, so
the ideology of deconstruction is inevitably into the design teaching in SCI-Arc.
Educators of SCI-Arc think architecture should be a kind of culture and innovation. We should
innovate not only in architecture but also in design practice. Students should open their design
ideas, and not be bounded by fixed architectural concept. It is shown in Figure. 2, they are
encouraged todo what they want to do for design. So in teaching practice, the goal of SCI-Arc is to
combined with the most trendy design ideas contemporary, cultivate innovative architect in the
future.

Figure.2 Students’ design works in SCI-Arc

Conclusions
Features of deconstruction architecture lie exaggeration and audacity in design. It doesn’t fear for
the traditional concept of authority at all. The purpose of deconstruction is to remove the shackles
of ideology from designers, and give them free space to create. This concept is also deeply
implanted into American architectural educators’ concept. They did not hesitate to implement the
concept in educational practice, so that students have more room for free play.
When modernism was faced with crisis, postmodernism was abandoned by some designers after
long-term active, the appearance of deconstruction thoughts can be said to draw a full stop for the
heyday of postmodernism. Deconstruction architectural thoughts have important status in
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 638-640 2225

contemporary design in the United States, but also have very profound impact on American
architectural education.

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Progress in Industrial and Civil Engineering III
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Influence on Design Education by the Architectural Trend of Deconstructivism

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