The Architectural Teaching Paradox: The Practice-Based PhD as a Compass in Navigating through the Incommunicable

The reflections developed in this paper took place from a sentence that architect Botta pronounced during the conference ‘The Practice of Teaching’ held at the Biennale Architettura 2018 – 16th International Architecture Exhibition. In that context Botta stated “It is not possible to teach architecture, but it is possible to learn architecture”1. This statement unveils the paradox inherent in architectural education on two different levels of reflection: first, reveals a truth about the different facets of architectural education that can be taught such as history, theory, technology etc., whereas the practice of architecture itself cannot be actually taught. The second stage of the reflection reveals an even more interesting feature of architectural education: design and the design practice are in fact taught but we do not have a clear understanding of how the process happens. Such anomaly suggests the existence of a nebulous space between teaching and learning in architecture and multiple questions arise from such reflections: how can one teach the matter of design? How is operational knowledge transferred from teachers to learners? Can one be trained on how to transfer knowledge or can one rely solely on their innate hunch?