Beyond the Lecture: Alternative Methods for Teaching the History of Architecture

History of Architecture is an essential part of architectural education, yet it is often taught through frontal lectures, crowded classrooms, extensive reading, and memorisation. For many students, particularly those with limited prior education in history, this can make the subject seem distant and disconnected from their own experience of architecture and the city.

This lecture explores alternative approaches developed through teaching at Istanbul Technical University. The aim is to move from the transmission of historical information towards active and participatory learning. Within the Palimpsest Cities project, students explored Istanbul through city walks, discussions, role-playing, collaborative assignments, games, and educational models. Instead of simply writing about the city, they were encouraged to interpret and communicate its historical layers in creative ways.

A second example is a summer school organised at the archaeological site of Limyra in Turkey, where architecture students learn through direct engagement with an archaeological site, combining lectures, observation, documentation, practical work, and teamwork. Despite offering neither grades nor credits, the programme attracts a remarkably high number of applicants.

These experiences raise a central question: how can architectural history become an active, situated, and engaging form of learning rather than a subject primarily based on listening, reading, and memorisation?

Zeynep Kuban (1964) is a professor in History of Architecture at the Istanbul Technical University with an undergraduate education in archaeology and art history. She is the head of the Master and PhD Programs in Art history at ITU. Apart from ITU she taught at TU Berlin, BTU Cottbus and LMU Munich as guest professor. She has been active in different archaeological field work missions and is the vice director of the excavation in Limyra- Turkey. Merging education, field work and social engagement she organized summerschools and workshops with her architecture students for the children of the local village of Limyra to develop a bond towards archaeological heritage and natural environment. In her understanding of education outside of the university frame she, together with a team of colleagues, organizes summerschools for the education for architects as active agents at archaeological sites. She is also active in workshops with students for primary school children in Istanbul. At the same time, she was active in projects like “Palimpsest Cities” on alternative education methods in the history of architecture.

She has been a Visiting Fellow in Princeton, is a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute, Member of Koldewey Gesellschaft, Member of ICOMOS Turkey National Committee.

General fields of publications and research are Archaeology in context, Institutional History, early 20^th century art and architecture.