THE SOCIALIZATION OF ARCHITECTURAL PREFERENCE

Abstract

The apparent difference in the appreciation of architecture between architects and 'lay' people has been the focus of much research. If architects truly have different standards of appreciation from nonarchitects, it is then most likely that these standards of judgement are acquired within the schools of architecture during the period of architectural education. The paper describes a cross-sectional study of the architectural preferences of students at two schools of architecture at five different stages of their education. Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) of the students' evaluations of 26 examples of contemporary architecture suggests a process of socialization within the schools of architecture whereby students develop standards of judgement that are both characteristic of the profession as a whole and shaped by the specific school of training. Analysis of the underlying structure of the students' evaluations of the buildings allows a model of architectural preference to be proposed. Although the students give a variety of explanations of why they appreciate the buildings they do, analysis of the associations between the buildings shows that the underlying structure of the evaluations is clearly based on architectural style. The implications are discussed.