NBWW post

Satisfying your curiosity for architecture, or any subject, has never been easier. Thanks to Google, online courses, and YouTube, there are more blueprint, documentaries, and articles, mostly free and nearly instantaneously available, than one could possibly absorb in a lifetime.

Using new media to educate the masses may seem novel today, but back in the ‘70s, it was more revolutionary to view television as a means of enlightenment as opposed to advertising. A new exhibit at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, The University is Now On Air:Broadcasting Modern Architecture, explores the legacy of a British radio and television course meant to democratize education about our built environment. Part of the pioneering Open University, this media-savvy course brought the buildings of Corbusier into your living room.

“This wasn’t simply providing vocational information, as had been tried before via distance education,” says Joaquim Moreno, curator of the exhibit, filled with videos, course material, and photos explaining how the mixed-media class operated. “This was intended to be a real university. And to be something more than a second-rate university, it needed the arts and humanities.”

One of the Corbusier course books included in the Open University’s modern architecture course.