Village College

Copio il seguente scritto tratto dal sito www.infed.org, che mi riprometto di tradurre. In esso si parla dell'esperienza della scuola di Impington ideata da H. Morris in Inghilterra e costruita sui disegni di Gropius. Nel pensiero di Morris si nota come sia fortemente educativa la forma architettonica.

Viewing Impington - Henry Morris and the idea of the village college

Henry Morris' championship of the village college has been a significant feature of, and inspiration for, discussions about the worth of community schooling. On this page we explore henry morris's vision of the village college (for more see henry morris) though the design and experience of impington village college

Morris took great care with the architecture and design of the village colleges. As Tony Jeffs has argued, he saw the buildings, landscape and public works of art we encounter in our daily round as powerful educators (1999: 59).

The design, decoration and equipment of our places of education cannot be regarded as anything less than of first-rate importance - as equally important, indeed, as the teacher. There is no order of precedence - competent teachers and beautiful buildings are of equal importance and equally indispensable ... We shall not bring about any improvement in standards of taste by lectures and preachings; habitation is the golden method. Buildings that are well-designed and equipped and beautifully decorated will exercise their potent, but unspoken, influence on those who use them from day to day. This is true education. The school, the technical college, the community centre, which is not a work of architectural art is to that extent an educational failure. (quoted in Jeffs 1999: 58)

Impington Village College is a remarkable achievement and influenced the design of school buildings in subsequent generations. Designed by Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry it was later described by Pesvener as one of the best buildings of its date in England, 'if not the best' (quoted by Jeffs 1999: 48).