Architectural Dropouts and Autodidacts (2016)
archinect.com
archinect.com
I appreciate autodidacts and there are many things I've taught myself (software engineering being one of those things). But, I am glad this article does not disavow education. Too often, articles like these try to highlight anomalies where people are successful despite no formal higher education and I think that sends the wrong message.
I think the point is a reality check on the value of education and the burden of education debt.
Education is wonderful; and I value mine. I just don't recommend it when the consequence is crippling debt.
My advice would be to start with a piece or several pieces of architecture and research the architect behind them. Explore more of their work along with other architects of a similar style or within the same movement (i.e. Le Corbosier and Mies Van der Rohe). Look at earlier buildings in their careers and compare them to later work and try to see what changed and why. Architecture doesn't happen in a vacuum and typically has rather reactionary elements to it, so what are those. Repeat this process with different architects or movements, and invariably you'll find a lot to explore.
Lastly, Architecture is experiential, and it's tough to simply look at drawings and understand space. Two of my favorite buildings are thousands of miles and thousands of years apart; the Pantheon in Rome, and the Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas. The reason why I love both buildings is that there is nothing that comes close to being in those spaces. Regardless of the the design, methodology, aesthetic, or history of either building, the space evokes something.
That's a meandering non-answer, but that's my take on it.
Architect here also.. I'm realising that we not that rare in HN..
I would say that learning architecture is a bit like learning chess. To grow fundamentals you need time to study the basic moves, general strategies and specific tactics. A good mentor helps a lot.
Computer languages are a good analogy for styles. You have battle tested styles, like Java or C++, that you are sure will do the job but they don't excite anyone anymore. Then you have Haskell or Clojure or Rust..
To have an idea where the Architecture fringe stands nowadays, look at my blogs [0][1], specially the one on architectural drawings. Stuff there had won or can be a basis to win prizes. I believe that for a layman it's not an easy task to understand why most drawings there are interesting like it's not understandable for a layman what makes a piece of code/software great. It takes years to fully understand all the nuances in a field of thought.
Much more interesting was then when we founded an internet provider, became the largest independent provider in our country, then I switched to journalism and to automotive engineering (pretty successful), and then back to sole SW engineering, which is the most interesting in the end.
Several other architecture friends also had similar wild careers. One also did F1 engine design, and the provider startup consisted of 3 ex-architects. Architects are generalists, they can do everything. Literally.
The most famous I did was probably https://www.archconsult.com/project/resowi-zentrum-der-karl-..., some parts of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenig_Steinhaus, the biggest city planning masterplan in Vienna, Aspern, and also the very first architectural VR and video visualisations.
Hope to visit one day.
Most, if not all of them, trained with worldclass mentors. It's a bit like if someone that had the privilege to divide his desk with several of the best programmers in the world calling himself an autodidact.