Abstract

This article presents the results of an ethnographic research project that looked at architectural students' experiences of disciplinary acculturation. The research focused on the architectural review: a pedagogic event used for the assessment of students' design projects and commonly understood as a liberal celebration of student creativity. The research investigated the review from the viewpoint of those who experienced it, that is, the students and staff, thereby arriving at an understanding of its character and function beyond that declared in 'folklore' or reified in texts. The findings built a picture of the architectural review as an important symbolic ritual in which 'apprentices' repeatedly present their habitus, a notion of identity that includes cognitive and embodied aspects, to their 'masters' for legitimization. Far from being a celebration of student achievement, the review was experienced by the students as a frightening event in which staff used their power to coerce students into reproducing staff-centred constructions of architectural habitus. In light of the findings the continuing use of the architectural review is questioned