Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Programme Directors: Julia Backhaus, Marjan Colletti
‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ asserts the wartime slogan devised by the British government in 1939, now a popular meme. This message has, however, rarely been more relevant than in 2020–21. Steadily, decisively and resolutely we carried on from the moment Covid-19 disrupted our lives. Last year we were antagonised by the unexpected, sudden and catastrophic. This year our vibrant school community faced a plethora of challenging and unnerving questions: Would we find the spirit to start the academic year with optimism? Would we have the stamina to cope long-term with the physical and psychological strain? Would we possess the critical ability and resilience to remain positive, agile and proactive? Would the incoming Year 4 students, many of them new to The Bartlett School of Architecture and London, manage to find the necessary momentum to start a postgraduate course, with unknown peers and tutors, and focus their study on the development of a comprehensive building project? Would graduating Year 5 students return to university with the necessary motivation to positively develop their thesis, intellect and career, since our final year – understood as the school’s pinnacle in research-based professional education – is driven by rigour, excellence and freedom? There have been far too many individual and collective crises. Yet, in the midst of enduring constraints – navigating our learning and teaching into abstract space; continuously shifting and rethinking our practices, conventions and pedagogies; endlessly e-conferencing and confined to our homes, mourning the physical space and the tangible instruments so essential to our discipline – we did not give up on our new and profound sense of online community, empathy and generosity. On the contrary, while global mobility, tourism and travel decelerated to unimaginable levels, students propelled themselves from the cockpits of their home offices into a brighter, more equal and diverse future. Together with their tutors, students spelt out new architectural grammars, augmented physical realities with new technologies, provoked established dogmas, set new agendas and extended the realm of architecture way beyond the physical. The students’ projects and essays provide indisputable evidence for their resilience as designers and architects.
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