Synopsis "The University is now on Air, Broadcasting Modern Architecture"
The Canadian Centre for Architecture is an international research centre and museum founded by Phyllis Lambert in 1979 on the conviction that architecture is a public concern. Through its collections, exhibitions, public programs, publications, and research opportunities, the CCA advances knowledge, promotes public understanding, and widens thought and debate on architecture, its history, theory practice, and its role in society today. The university is now on air, broadcasting modern architecture examines a key experiment by The Open University to mobilize new media environments for distance and adult education. Eight episodes written by Joaquim Moreno, conversations with Tim Benton, Nick Levinson, Adrian Forty, Joseph Rykwert and Stephen Bayley, and contributions by Nick Beech, Laura Carter, Ben Highmore, and Joseph Bedford, offer a close reading of the course A305, History of Architecture and Design 1890-1939, which was taught through television and radio broadcasts, aired on the BBC between 1975 and 1982. As current models for producing and transmitting knowledge are being brought into question, The university is now on air, broadcasting modern architecture traces a radical attempt at rethinking the mandate of higher education through mass media. Open, wireless, of the air, at a distance, door-to-door, by correspondence, extramural, remedial, continuing and adult education when these notions collided in postwar Britain, the tensions between them reorganized the relationship among media, geography, and education, transforming the very idea of a university. Joaquim Moreno
