Renegades: The American School of Architecture
ARCH 4970/5970
Stephanie Pilat, Division of Architecture
Luca Guido, Division of Architecture
"A new school, probably the only indigenous one in the United States" is how the architect Donald MacDonald once characterized the school of architecture that developed under the guidance of Bruce Goff and Herb Greene at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s and '60s. At the time, architecture schools in the United States followed a curriculum inspired by either the French Beaux Arts school or the German Bauhaus school. On one hand, the French model centered on studies of classical principles of design and entailed meticulous copying of the great classical architecture of Greece and Rome. On the other hand, schools such as the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Harvard Graduate School of Design adapted the Bauhaus curriculum model-known for embracing industry and abstraction in art, architecture, and design-to the American context. Only the University of Oklahoma stood apart from these two trends and developed an original and authentically American approach to architecture and pedagogy.