Architecture Faculty Publish American School Chapter in Scholarly Book

Architecture faculty Stephanie Pilat and Angela Person recently published a chapter in the book, Histories of Architecture Education in the United States, edited By Peter L. Laurence (Routledge, 2023). This book is an edited collection that focuses on the professional evolution, experimental and enduring pedagogical approaches and leading institutions of American architecture education. 

Pilat and Person’s chapter, Radical Empathy in the Teaching of Bruce Goff and the ‘American School’ of Architects, highlights the University of Oklahoma’s unique and radical approaches to architectural education. As the authors explain in their chapter, “Oklahoma student work is dramatic, otherworldly, and, at times, bizarre. There are no boxes to be found.”  

Specifically, the chapter focuses on the unique design curriculum implemented by architect and OU alumni Bruce Goff. Hired by OU in 1947, Goff brought an incredibly unique perspective to the school of Architecture. His teaching style encouraged students to test the limits of traditional design by creating work that looked like no other. As explained by the authors, “Oklahoma student work was not born of mass production and efficiency; it was a product of wild imagination and creative visioning made possible by the boundary-pushing encouragement of OU faculty.”

These exemplary teaching methods led to the development of Gibbs College’s American School, a school of design and practice that developed under the guidance of Goff, Herb Greene and others at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s and ’60s. 

Learn more about Pilat and Person’s chapter.