Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Eric Bellin
The life of the Polish architect, Matthew Nowicki, was cut tragically short ina 1950 plane crash returning from Chandigarh, India to the United States.He had been asked to design the plan for the new capital there, a task thatwould subsequently fall to Le Corbusier. In Nowicki’s untimely death at theage of forty, not only was a very promising young architect lost, but also a visionaryeducator. At the end of 1940’s Nowicki was appointed as the Headof the Department of Architecture at North Carolina State University, andcurricular changes were quickly instituted to inscribe “humanistic values”within the education of the architect.For Nowicki, an education in design was to begin with the “study of manin terms of his psychology, intellect and emotion” and the relationship betweenthese things and the physical environment in which he is enveloped.This humanist position was imbedded within NC State’s architecture curriculumin the form of required courses including Contemporary Civilization,Contemporary Science and Society, Human Behavior, and Urban Sociology.In this, Nowicki attempted to fuse concerns of anthropology and sociologywith architectural education, and while this was not uncommon in the1960’s and 70’s, the program at NC State University is one of the earliestAmerican examples of such an attempt.This paper explores the details and particulars of the curricular changesthat Matthew Nowicki implemented at North Carolina State University in hiseffort to build the program around the notion of a humanist architecture.Also investigated is the role of Lewis Mumford, a mentor and collaborator ofNowicki’s, who was both instrumental in curricular development and servedas a visiting professor at the School of Architecture. As much of contemporaryarchitectural education gravitates towards questions of technique anddigital production, a fresh look at Nowicki’s humanist curriculum serves toremind us that, above all else, an architect builds for people, and questionsof humanity must not be left behind.
Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa
ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1
