Where do you learn architecture?

Q. My son wants to be an architect, and he’s applying to different schools. How would you recommend choosing a school? We have a little time and want to know what you suggest that we look for. You have mentioned in the past being an engineer, not an architect, but our son is very artistic and not as math-oriented. Any ideas?

A. Choosing a school can be a frustrating decision because the costs are so great, schools are different in their philosophies and teaching emphasis, and some people think that the school you choose should be a status symbol, that MIT is better than the University of Michigan. What most people seem to forget, or maybe never correlate, is that architects are supposed to be trained to custom-create, to shape a three-dimensional form that has to function in complex ways. Even the simplest home project is loaded with problems to solve.

Unfortunately, television has oversimplified the concepts, using cutaway camera shots to depict just the start and finish of construction without the process in between. Each step of design, whether you’re planning the next cell phone, car, perfume bottle, or building, is a process. We don’t just draw. Architecture schools do a real disservice if they place too much emphasis on the pretty-picture-design process without integrating the guts of a building into the curriculum.