Siberian Architects Meeting

I arranged a meeting at Central Saint Martins for a group from the Architectural Department Siberian Federal University and South Federal University – Russian Federation. They are from Krasnoyarsk in Siberia (click here for more details of the university). The photos of the town and region suggested a lovely location with a town with some very attractive buildings. The architectural practice seemed of the traditional kind abandoned in Britain but with strengths that might well be valuble - their students are taught to draw - they do life classes throughout their architectural career and have a thorough grounding in drawing, draftsmanship and technical drawing. They showed drawings of Mercury, and Palladian villas as well as Russian style concrete utopias. This was in contrast to the British way of teaching which is much more conceptually based - seems they is lots for each side to learn.