The Life of a Young Architect: What You Learn in Architecture School

In the next episode of the “Fundamenty” podcast series, Sonia Kwiatkowska discusses the lives of young architects. The discussion begins with the memories of architecture students and graduates—not always positive, often linked to pressure, excessive workloads, and a sense of being lost.

Why is it worth talking about architecture studies?

Sonia Kwiatkowska is a young architect herself. She works in the field, has been running a blog dedicated to architecture for several years, and is also active on social media. It was on Instagram that she began regularly initiating conversations about architecture. At first, there were questions about beauty and ugliness in architecture; later, the topic naturally shifted toward the studies and daily lives of young architects.

It turned out that this topic sparked a great deal of emotion. Sonia began receiving messages from students and graduates who shared their own experiences. Many of these stories dealt with difficult moments, exhaustion, pressure, or the feeling that the demands placed on students during their studies were disproportionate to their capabilities.

It was these conversations that became the starting point for the first episode of a new series produced in collaboration with Architektura & Biznes.

Sonia emphasizes from the outset, however, that this is not a statistical study. The stories collected are the individual opinions and experiences of people who decided to share their memories. They cannot be treated as a representative picture of all Polish architecture schools. They are, however, an important voice in the discussion about what studying architecture is like and what challenges those embarking on this path face.

First Memory—Humiliation

One of the most frequently mentioned themes was humiliation. Studying architecture involves constant evaluation of one’s work. Projects are presented, discussed, and critiqued in front of instructors and fellow students. It is therefore easy to cross the line between evaluating a project and evaluating a person.

Sonia recounts stories of people who were told by their instructors that they should change careers or that they weren’t cut out to be architects. One of her interviewees recalls a situation in which, during a review session in front of the entire group, she was told she couldn’t draw.

Sonia also shares a personal story from an architectural history exam. One of the students was caught using his phone during the exam. The proctor then began to read his private messages aloud to the class. For Sonia, this was no longer a way to draw attention to inappropriate behavior, but rather a public humiliation of another person.

How should one react in such situations? One option might be to ask a simple question—why? Why does the instructor believe the student isn’t cut out to be an architect? Why should a single project serve as the basis for judging the whole person?

It’s not always easy, but in Sonia’s opinion, any attempt at humiliation should be met with a response. That doesn’t necessarily mean confrontation right away. Sometimes it’s enough to ask a simple question—why?

Why does the instructor believe that the student isn’t cut out to be an architect? Why should a single project serve as the basis for evaluating the entire person? And why should criticism of the work turn into criticism of the person?

Such situations may stem from frustration or an inappropriate exercise of authority, but it is the students who bear the brunt of the consequences. Public humiliation can undermine their self-confidence and cause them to question their own abilities.

That is precisely why Sonia decided to speak out about these experiences. It is not only about criticizing the way classes are taught, but also about showing students that they are not alone. If they encounter similar situations during their studies, it does not mean that the problem lies solely with them.

The Question of Purpose

The second issue that came up very often in Sonia’s conversations was a sense of a lack of purpose. One phrase recurred in her interlocutors’ stories almost like a mantra: “I don’t know what the purpose is of what I’m doing.”

Sonia herself didn’t realize the value of the knowledge she gained during her studies until after she graduated. When she started her first job, she was surprised to discover that much of the information she’d learned in college actually proved useful. However, it wasn’t always the aspects she’d considered most important during her studies. Often, it was knowledge she’d picked up in passing, seemingly irrelevant at the time.

This experience led her to an important conclusion. The problem isn’t what we learn in architecture school, but the way we’re taught it.

Students work on many projects and are exposed to a wide variety of fields of knowledge, but they don’t always know how a specific task will be useful to them in their future careers. It’s also difficult to expect them to remember everything they encounter during their several years of study. This makes it all the more important to highlight which information and skills are essential.

Without this context, students may not understand what an architect’s work actually entails. They have only a general idea of their future profession but do not always know what the step-by-step process of creating a building looks like.

Why is it necessary to know the regulations? Why is conceptual design important? What role does the construction drawing play? And why isn’t it simply the final stage of the design process?

According to Sonia, the answers to these questions should emerge as early as during college. A student who understands the purpose behind a specific task can more easily grasp its significance and learn more. A few sleepless nights spent on a project can then cease to be merely a necessity for passing a course and become an investment in skills that will prove useful in the workplace in a few years.

It’s a small shift in perspective, but it can make a huge difference in how young people learn architecture.

Are we all historians?

Another point of reflection concerns the history of architecture. Sonia poses a provocative question: Are all young architects, in a sense, historians?

If you look at the amount of time devoted to specific topics during their studies, you might get that impression. Students study the history of architecture and the history of urban planning, analyze contemporary architecture, and memorize examples of buildings.

Studying history itself is, of course, not the problem. On the contrary—the history of architecture can be incredibly interesting and valuable. It helps us understand how thinking about space has changed and how architecture has been linked to social, economic, and cultural transformations.

The problem arises when understanding history is replaced by rote memorization.

Sonia’s interviewees recalled the hours spent memorizing details and drawing from memory hundreds of buildings, their floor plans, cross-sections, and facades. They could recreate a specific detail, but they did not always know why architecture looked a certain way during a given period.

And yet the question “why?” should be one of the most important questions when studying the history of architecture. Why was the Baroque different from the Renaissance? What social and economic changes led to the emergence of specific forms? What caused architects to begin designing in a completely different way?

According to Sonia, it’s a shame that devoting so much time to history doesn’t always lead to answers to these questions. Learning can then turn into a memory exercise rather than a tool for better understanding contemporary architecture.