The Education of an Architect: Robust Guesswork with confirmed speakers and respondents: Peter Zellner, Eleni Xilakis, Paul Shepheard, Albane Duvillier, Iain Boal, Nicholas Boyarsky, Rory Sherlock, AAgora, Graeme Brooker, Fred Scott and Odile Decq

The first session of the Shadow Series is dedicated to 'Education', specifically the education of an architect. This seems appropriate since the Shadow Series is taking place in the A.A, itself a small school founded by a group of dissatisfied architectural draughtsmen in The Strand, London 1847. The session’s focus is on presenting- without-nostalgia some experimental models of education developed in the past, while scrutinizing-without-sentimentality the recent ones. Speakers, respondents and attendees are invited to engage on robust guesswork regarding the current ‘cruel optimism’ of architecture education.

The Shadow Series intends to turn the (usually) shadow condition of the members/alumni into a shadowing force that debates architecture at the present scale of an expanded AA. Unlike the global school, which ventures into a variety of locations, the shadow series is an intimate event at the institution’s core that assembles AA’s bodies, humours and brains. Organised by John Andrews & Maria Theodorou, with the support of Membership Office. All welcome