A Partial History of Planning Workshops: The Experience of Ten Schools from 1955 to 1984

This paper examines the changing role of the workshop or studio course in the planning curriculum over the period of 1955 to 1984 Telephone interviews were conducted with twenty faculty members at ten of the sixteen schools which had established Masters degrees in 1955 It was found that the central element of the curriculum in 1955 at all ten schools was a sequence of two or three workshops After 1960 there was a decline in the number of workshops at most schools, and some curricula dropped the workshop as a requirement in the 1970s The emergence of three diverse roles is analyzed for the workshop by 1984 Trends in five aspects of the workshop activity — workshop requirements, workshop objectives, faculty role, the use of clients, and space allocation — are examined Reasons for the changes between 1955 and the present are suggested