Designing Schools

'An excellent contribution to the school design literature, the book is especially suited to readers interested in the history of open-plan schools and in different methodological approaches. Since many of the essays address the open-plan school, readers can explore how these schools embodied Cold War values of individualism and freedom, how teaching conventions challenged their success, and how national contexts produced variations in the rise and fall of this model.' - Rachel Remmel, History of Education Quarterly, University of Rochester

'Discerning and indispensible, Designing Schools: Space, Place and Pedagogy takes us to Australia, Europe, the United States, Africa, and Latin America to learn about school buildings in the twentieth century. This thematically organized and generously illustrated book, written by experts in the field, tracks changes in architectural design, pedagogy, childhood, space, place, technology, and nationality. Designing Schools also introduces the teachers, architects, and other adults who wanted to build better schools for an astonishing array of boys and girls--rich and poor, rural and urban, white, Aboriginal, African American, and African children— although the outcomes were not always praiseworthy. A welcome addition to the new and exciting field of children, space, and schools.' - Marta Gutman, PhD, Professor of Architecture (History & Theory), The City College of New York/CUNY and The Graduate Center/CUNY

'The wealth of evidence and argument in Designing Schools for the cultural significance of school architecture is overwhelming. This book puts the materiality of schooling back into the centre of our efforts to understand how teaching and learning have changed over the last century. Relationships between modernism in school design and efforts to develop progressive pedagogies are only part of the argument. The chapters in this book explore new dimensions of old questions such as the significance of the school in the making of populations conceived in racial, gender and class terms. Designing Schools challenges its readers to imagine schools as spaces as much as places, and the meanings they develop within a variety of geographical, cultural and temporal settings that include urban, suburban and rural—national, colonial and post colonial. Designing Schools is significant enough to change the ways we think about schooling.' - Craig Campbell, Editor, History of Education Review, University of Sydney