Death of the Paris Program: A Death by 1,000 Cuts
joseph newman | March 23rd, 2011
We are the last class to experience the Paris Program!?! As a senior architecture student participating in the Paris Program, I never imagined I’d have to think about, let alone put such a thought into writing.
Dean Balfour and some of the administration responsible for the Paris Program have chosen to turn it into a simple exchange with the university here. You might be asking, what’s the big deal? There will still be a program in Paris so what’s the difference? I didn’t know the significance of the word “exchange” at first either, but it is a very important word…
The program has always been what is called a “resident instruction”. This means the School of Architecture maintains an office here at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette (ENSAPLV), the host architecture school, and the professors who teach our classes sign a contract with the School of Architecture. Although something like having an office might not seem like much, those of us participating as well as the program’s alumni have seen firsthand the importance this kind of distinction carries.
Turning the program into a simple exchange means students coming here will for the most part have to navigate the governmental bureaucracy, university bureaucracy, find housing, sign up for the required health insurance and more on their own. The gratitude the other students and I have for the time and effort our program coordinator, Anja Valero, took to guide us through the incredibly daunting, and regularly frustrating, French bureaucracy can’t be expressed in words. Trying to imagine doing all these things with the level of preparation we had when we arrived is mind boggling. Having someone to help guide us through these nuances allowed us to start making the most of our time here right away.
I know, for me personally, this experience is something I have eagerly waited for since transferring to Tech. The Paris Program was truly a selling point and thinking about the prospect of the program as a simple exchange, I probably would have seriously considered going to a different school. My time in the Architecture program has not been an easy one and there have been numerous times when I wasn’t sure if I could keep putting myself through the fatigue, frustration, anger and sadness, but I would always think to the Paris Program as a light at the end of the tunnel. Now that I’m here all the doubts and stress have melted away and I’m truly having a once in a lifetime experience.
On top of my personal experiences what also makes the fate of the Program so frustrating and upsetting is the way the management of it has been handled. Last year when we were preparing to come there was healthy interest but the costs of the program were not given to us until weeks into the second semester. We were told this was because administration for the program was being transferred to the College of Architecture but then for some reason was given back to the School of Architecture. This delay of giving us information meant at least two or three students dropped out of the program. While there might have been a genuine interest in better management of the program, we found that due to the lack of information and someone to talk to we could not discuss our upcoming trip with underclassmen in a way to maintain word of mouth knowledge/interest.
The other students and I felt like preparations for the juniors this year would be better managed because the organization issues seemed to be worked out. A little while into the first semester we heard there was not a lot of interest and/or knowledge about the program so we got a newsletter (viewable here), made each year by the students in Paris, to school as quick as possible and asked a short write up each of us made to be emailed to all the students. The numbers we heard made it seem like these had no effect. However a couple months into the second semester we found out there were apparently something like 25 students initially interested, about half of these seemed seriously interested, and then for some reason the number dropped to only a handful. What seems to be most telling with regards to how some in the administration view the program is the fact that when our Program Director, Professor Libero Andreotti, traveled to Tech and had a presentation about the program and student work for that semester ready to present, he was told the night before he didn’t need to give the presentation.
To show the administration the continued support for the program those of us here created and circulated a petition found here (feel free to sign and pass it along to others as well): to alumni and professors at Tech. We sat down with Dean Balfour, SoA Chair Professor George Johnston and Eric Trevena on March 3rd, when they came to discuss the fate of the program with our teachers and the host school. We found the meeting a classic case of “dodge the question” and finger-pointing. The Dean reiterated several times that his only task is to handle French tax code issues and both the Dean and Professor Johnston insisted things were better organized and advertised. The Dean also repeated several times the fact that he wanted to hear our suggestions for how to “increase” interest in the program. Several suggestions were made, fundraising directed toward program alumni, of which at least 200 signed the petition; some students coming for a semester and others for a year, have all participants take a French studio and others, but all were treated with a standard: We’ll take these back to Atlanta with us/research them further.
Most telling was when the issue of our director not giving his presentation was raised the Dean immediately said he didn’t know about that happening or why it would happen and asked Professor Johnston if he knew what happened. Professor Johnston also said he didn’t know what happened and apologized to our director for not being able give the presentation. The other students and I got the sense that the Dean and Professor Johnston knew about this but hadn’t expected us to know and/or bring it up.
The Dean also mentioned the depressed status of Paris within architecture and urban planning. While at first this might seem to be the case, during our time here the other students and I have seen how the city faces the same issues as at least other modern European cities. It has to confront the issues of urban sprawl, an increasingly strained public transportation system, an unemployed and un-housed population and etc… The program already has the advantage of being a resident instruction program, why cancel it? Our teachers have repeatedly insisted their willingness to update the program, make it more “relevant”, but have never received any feedback suggesting this is what the administration wants.
Although the program might be a simple exchange this year I hope that by reading this article, getting people to sign the petition, and letting the administration know they can’t handle one of the longest running study abroad programs at Tech this way, it will once again thrive and enrich the lives of students as a resident instruction program for another 35 years. I’d also like to express the truly profound gratitude I, the other students this year, and students from past years have for all the time and effort the Program Director Libero Andreotti, Program Coordinator Anja Valero, and Professors Marc Bederida, Damien Valero, and Xavier Wrona as well as past Professors have invested in the program.
[ architecture, Paris, Paris Program, soa ]
thanks for clarifying the current paris program a little. It was a selling point for me attending georgia tech as well. Although I ultimately decided to spend my abroad time elsewhere, and graduated before 4th year, I’ve heard many students enjoy it.
some critical questions need be asked:
1. What is the benefit to Georgia Tech’s school of architecture “In Atlanta” with students leaving their final year, and going abroad?
2. How do students embody the knowledge and impregnate studios so that others can see and feed of it when they graduate upon finishing he paris program?
3. Could we move the program to Spring semester of junior year to revitalize both the senior studio culture and the nature and openness of senior studios?
4. How can Georgia Tech benefit from students studying in Paris?
5. Is Paris still as relevant to study as an avant-garde urban and cultural center as it was when Heffernen began the program years ago?
6. Is Paris more relevant than other cities that could provide contemporary examples of urbanity?
[as a note, many of these are rhetorical]
I like the discussion you’ve started leeland, I think you def. raise many of the issues the administration had raised,but clearly with the desire to answer them rather than use them as excuses to bury the program
1. Well for one, it could mean there is no need for 4th year studio. The option of a senior thesis could be made available for those who wish to stay at GT however, or 4th year ID+Arch studios could be combined to make up for lower numbers and provide a near experience.
2. This is a critical question, perhaps its a matter of making it a 3rd year program ? Or 1 semester ? Or perhaps it is about finding new ways to communicate with alumni, which was already an issue – as Merica mentioned.
3. Ah you beat me to it, I think thats an idea.
4. Its a matter of capitalizing on the resources at hand.
5. Yes.
6. More relevant, perhaps not, but certainly as relevant.
[1] i think this is a critical issue because while studying abroad your final year seems like a great opportunity there are some issues. applying to grad schools or finding jobs back in the us could present a challenge. also it requires the student to have taken ever required course at tech without the chance of making something up when they get back.
[5 / 6] i traveled to paris while on the barcelona program and i am glad that i did. i did not like the city. i did not like the people. i did like the art. i did not like the architecture. while admittedly i was only there 4 or 5 days i think it is just a relevant a visit as a longer visit. i was in several other cities for shorter periods with much better experiences. the architecture in paris was mind-bogglingly boring. it was the exact same neo-baroque housing block. one after the next. ornate and identical. a city composed of banal ornamentation.
the art was the only redeeming quality. in three days i went to the louvre, the pompidou and the d’orsay. [an exhausting, but amazing adventure.]
i am not trying to detract from the city and i understand that this was only a small sampling of every major tourist attraction the city has to offer, but i wonder at the relevance of the city. i do not remember seeing a single contemporary work of architecture outside of the centre pompidou.
thats not to say it doesnt exist, but rather it is more rare. more difficult to come by. i got the sense that the city was perfectly happy to perpetuate its own boring repetition without resorting to more dramatic contemporary gestures.
this being said i was fully prepared to go on the paris program. the opportunity to live in a different country for nine months is an amazing opportunity. 10 weeks of barcelona shifted my global mindset, i can only imagine that 9 months anywhere outside of the us would do the same.
my biggest problem with that is that the paris program was seemingly swept under the carpet by the administration that hoped that other events this semester would overshadow its death. it comes across as sneaky, underhanded, shifty, sketchy, and unprofessional.
why not publicly announce their intentions?
it would gain a lot more of my respect.
I’m going to defend Paris as a viable city in which to live. Whatever the administration issues (of which we know there are many at our School), I think it’s an important question: why Paris?
Paris isn’t the most up-to-date city in terms of modern architecture and contemporary development, and it is one of the worst European cities suffering from urban sprawl. The public transportation is extensive but congested, and there are far too many cars driving around.
What’s the point?
We forget the history of this city. Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, and Ernest Hemingway fondly speak of the flaneur experience. It is still very much rife in Paris. The “monotony” of neo-classical and Beaux-Arts architecture is a description for the image of a once powerful center of Europe; there is a polemical understanding to be deduced from this city. Most importantly, the city is still driven by people, and many different types. The issue of race in Paris is an incredibly involved discussion.
I agree that Paris isn’t as cool an idea as it was 35 years ago, but it’s not about being “cool.” It’s about the prospect of a mechanically efficient city with a predetermined outlook on its urban fabric. And amidst all this planning and compromise to a more personal environment, Paris has its cracks, where a prostitute tries to heckle you only to be heckled by a homeless person; you meet an actor and an actress for a cruise ship that hadn’t been built yet; you meet a Canadian couple while people-watching in front of the Eiffel Tower; that enormous cheese crepe is giving you a stomachache; the blond girl with the piercing blue eyes constantly catches you staring at her.
Paris is a city with all the problems that you can imagine a city to have, and with all the weight of history bearing down its infrastructure. It’s made more unique and powerful for just that.
And whoever says French people aren’t nice, I have no idea why they didn’t like you–they treated me quite well.
as a participant in the Paris program, i have to say that it was a selling point of attending Georgia Tech. i was extremely sad upon receiving the “alumni” letter about the cancellation of the program.
to bring a different light to the discussion… i don’t think it has to be paris. don’t get me wrong. i loved paris. i loved living there. i loved the entire experience. but what i think is important to remember about the paris program that is so different from many other study abroad program is the connection you make by being there for two semesters. by the time i left, i knew my arrondisment like the back of my hand. i knew the grocer on my street and he knew me. when traveling to other parts of europe, i knew i was coming home to my apartment in paris. and in some small way, i felt like a parisian.
as we all know, there is something completely different between living and visiting. with the global access we have now, it’s easy to hop across the atlantic and visit pretty architecture. it’s completely different to understand how a city operates and who the residents are. and i argue that you can’t do that in 3 days, a week or even a semester. by creating a year-long program, georgia tech has offered something different than many other architecture programs.
so, i guess my argument is not that it’s paris, but rather it’s the year-long experience that paris offers. could it be in a different place? i think so. but to just make it a tour around a continent eliminates what made it so special for me and the other students i was with.
Well lets set aside the city of Paris for a moment, the real issue here is the staff that we had in Paris. Libero,Anja,Xavier,Marc and Damien were all fantastic and some of the best educators I have met during my time at Tech and to have them go to waste is a huge loss as well.