„More for less“?

Could you elaborate on the specific topics of the conference?
It was discussed, as the title suggests, whether it is possible, amid significant budget cuts for schools, to achieve an improvement in teaching with less money or fewer teachers, with fewer hours, and so on. I must admit that this topic seemed to me overly dramatized for a three-day conference. Perhaps because we are not doing too well here, but we are still not as bad off as in some other European countries…
Only at the conference did I realize how critical the situation is in some states, especially Mediterranean ones, but also in Ireland or Iceland. These are the countries that have been hit harder by the crisis than we have. At the same time, however, you cannot ignore that no one is certain in the face of this danger… As a result, these states have to implement severe cuts: it is about thirty to fifty percent cuts in the budget. However, it must be admitted that Portugal, Spain, Italy, or Greece had bloated budgets, with some oversized benefits, and their system was not very flexible either. And then another serious topic was discussed in Crete: the number of students. Currently, an enormous number of university graduates are being produced; however, the question is whether they will subsequently find employment in practice. On the other hand, the conference also discussed the nature of architectural education, its complexity and universality, which guarantees that an architect can perform a whole range of professions. They are adaptable, more than other narrowly specialized professions. In other words, training more architects is probably less harmful than training more specialized professions… Nevertheless, some countries and universities are also considering reducing the number of students. For example, the Netherlands, representatives of TU Delft, which is one of the largest in Europe, came to Crete with such a plan… setting aside Italian schools. They accept up to 650 students per year, which is about twice as many as our faculty, and they intend to reduce that number to about 450.

Lukáš Janout, Dominican monastery, thesis supervisor prof. Ladislav Lábus; land situation

So what is the situation regarding reductions in our country?
The Czech Republic is trying to address reductions on a nationwide level. Thus, according to the given coefficients, the total number of students will decrease every year, for now by five percent of last year's state. Which, by the way, does not even correspond to the population decline. It is even greater.

Could you elaborate on this decline?
From 1993 to 1996, there was a significant drop in the number of newborns… From more than 130,000 to 90,000 per year. And this situation lasted for about ten years, only in recent years has the curve started to rise – to about 118,000. Now it is dropping slightly again… Currently, the wave of significant population reduction has reached high schools, and in the three to four years when the generation reaches nineteen, this decline will also impact universities, and the number of graduates from high school or secondary education will decrease dramatically.

What other tools does the Western world use for cost reduction?
In Mediterranean countries, they have been forced to intervene in the structures of universities and faculties, reducing the number of faculties, institutes, and departments by merging individual faculties and departments into larger units. However, an interesting observation often appeared in the discussion: namely, that this path indirectly removed so-called duplications in study programs. In other words, this pressure has benefited the internal connectivity and integrity of the school. Simply put, the academic community has started to communicate better…

It occurs to me whether at this moment it is possible to attempt a certain reflection on the so-called Bologna Process.
The Bologna Process had, of course, several motivations; however, one assumed that with an increase in the number of university students to over fifty percent of the population, it must be accompanied by structured program offerings, with half ending at the bachelor's level. Today, in our country, up to seventy percent of the population goes to university; in such a situation, it is indeed nonsensical for everyone to graduate as masters. As far as the Czech Republic is concerned, the strategies of our former governments aimed at increasing the number of university students, which at first did not go well in the early 90s, and the opposition and the ruling party accused each other of keeping us at the tail end of educational Europe. Over the last five to ten years, we have become perhaps the most dynamic country in this regard – but the proportion of the population attending universities is already becoming nonsensical, especially when so many continue in master's programs.

Lukáš Janout, Dominican monastery, thesis supervisor prof. Ladislav Lábus; northern view with windows of the refectory and chapter

By the way, is it realistic for a country to have so many intelligent, or educated people at once? Does this movement not also mean a decrease in standards?
Of course. On the other hand, being, say, a car mechanic today requires a different level of education than fifty years ago, when anyone could fix a car themselves. Only in a minimal number of professions can a person get by with basic education today. And it is true that bachelor's degrees have essentially replaced what used to be quite popular and successful technical schools here…

Even so, it seems like we are witnessing a process of mere renaming or retitling…
The question for discussion is where the reasonable boundary lies. The government strategy in the past proposed that fifty percent of people should be enrolled in universities for bachelor's programs. At that time, it sounded crazy. But only fifty percent of this number was to go on to master's studies… And currently, it is indeed stated that in the Czech Republic about eighty-five percent of students continue in master's studies, which implies that actually more than half of the population will be masters, which is nonsense. And here you can see how the state does not keep an eye on its money; after all, it finances all this… By the way, when I speak of frugality: perhaps nowhere in Europe is there a six-year education for architects. The Union requires a four-year program, and all architectural associations have been fighting for thirty years for it to last at least five years, which is the European standard. And all schools here, except for our faculty, offer the six-year luxury... Furthermore, in Brno until recently, the government paid for a year of studies when the student was on mandatory practice…

Tereza Lemperová, regulatory plan of Masaryk's quarter, Prague-Troja, atelier of prof. Ladislav Lábus, 2009/10; broader relations

And yet, the question is whether graduates will even find employment after graduation – as you suggested at the beginning. Do they have opportunities outside their field?
They have a fairly wide range of applications. They can lean towards the technical side of the profession, or the humanitarian, or the artistic. A good architect must also possess some managerial skills, to lead a team in the office and on the construction site. They must also be able to sell their work, so there are architects who also engage in business.

Tereza Lemperová, regulatory plan of Masaryk's quarter, Prague-Troja, atelier of prof. Ladislav Lábus, 2009/10; visualization of both houses

A deeper reflection on the current system of tertiary education is offered by the book Theory of Uneducation by Austrian Germanist, historian, and philosopher Liessmann – today, with a bit of exaggeration, almost mandatory reading for actors in this field… Which of Liessmann's views interested you the most?
I think it is an important message that is perhaps framed in a somewhat unnecessarily conflicting stylization of the situation, but that is probably a condition for the success of the book; otherwise, we would not have noticed it. However, Liessmann probably does not expect us to return to the Humboldt era and for universities to return to the educational system of the 18th and 19th centuries. In his book, he compares certain ailments of quantification that begins even from basic education: which are the so-called PISA points; and quantification actually permeates the entire process of education, including higher education. Everything around us is formalizing, and the teacher must constantly prove that they are really doing something. And perhaps they spend more time on this than on actual doing. Plus the issue of grants: to succeed in a larger grant, you must hire an expert. So it is primarily not about what you are researching, but how to obtain a grant expert. Liessmann discovers paradoxes that are true, even if they cannot be solved simply. However, to me, it is the same as complaining about how much computers change and how they empty our certain accustomed or traditional values… Nevertheless, what will we do about it? It is true that a person should resist these tendencies and try not to succumb to quantification, for instance. But at the same time, it is also true that one cannot completely disregard it.

It is sometimes said that the essence of our existence is to be educated. But currently it seems that education is becoming nothing more than a sheer tool of the market…
Unfortunately, education cannot protect itself against the general tendency. The market simply occupies art, occupies science in a way, occupies education. And it is difficult to resist it.

Tomáš Pokorný, Buštěhrad - conversion and completion of the former imperial brewery area, atelier of prof. Ladislav Lábus, 2010/11

In conclusion, allow me to ask about your faculty studio: What assignment have you chosen for your students this year?
Originally, we considered two assignments in Vinohrady – next to each other. In the end, I decided on the Buďánka location. Its history is quite sad. The place was saved twenty years ago by declaring it a heritage zone, but the city allowed the houses to be run down. When a demolition project for the settlement was being prepared in the 1980s, the city bought the plots, except for one house, but did not treat them as heritage. It was not able to do anything with them. Perhaps squatters, who occupied the houses, prevented their complete decay… A second twist of fate followed: about five years ago, a storm came, and the city allowed the collapsed roofs to be torn down to prevent danger to life. However, as a result, the houses began to disappear very quickly. So today instead of twenty-five, barely five remain. But even those mostly have just walls; from the others, only foundations remain... And it occurred to me that it probably no longer makes sense to look for the former appearance, but rather that a more interesting approach for the students’ assignment could be to search for the original atmosphere. And to make this search easier, our assignment assumed adherence to the original parceling; because I believe the climate of Buďánka is strongly rooted in it. The actual buildings can then be shaped by students more freely, provided they maintain the character of small scale. By the way, Buďánka was a specific workers' colony: they were not built by an industrialist but by the workers themselves, thus resembling the organically grown construction of a village. I assigned the task so that there would be what is now called co-housing, meaning neighborhood housing. And in addition, housing for the less fortunate. So it is not about any luxury villas…

Tomáš Pokorný, Buštěhrad - conversion and completion of the former imperial brewery area, atelier of prof. Ladislav Lábus, 2010/11

School assignments often reflect social movements. How does the faculty try to respond?
I don't know how to answer. The fact that I assigned the Buďánka project is no accident, but on the other hand, I am not a programmatic activist who assigns hot potatoes. When I think about it ahead of time, I am a bit afraid of these assignments. I fear that the positive aspect – namely that young people are addressing something relevant, which they have their own opinion on and which resonates with them – this idea might overshadow the very purpose of why they are in school: that is, to learn how to make buildings.

Thank you for the interview.
Jiří Horský