An architectural educator is one who educates ("draws out") others about architecture; the latter being the broad subject of the design of constructed environments. Architectural Education has both public architectural education and professional architectural education stakeholder groups. The career of an architectural educator usually develops from a career in architecture or developed interest and practise in architecture and/or education about architecture.
Educating people about architecture as a system of placing things in the world, which was once considered an elite or sacred form of "knowledge". Architecture was "archaically" defined in Western history, for example, by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (Rome c. 40 BC) as a culturally "higher order". Yet in writing De Re Architectura Libri Decem (On Architecture, in Ten Books), Vitruvius also formalised written Western architectural education. Many other cultures have aural and tactile non-textual architectural education traditions. Contemporary education about the order and placement of things can equally be regarded as a hermeneutic (in Schleiermacher's sense): as developing citizens' understanding about the ecological significance of arrangements of people and things in particular human environments.
Architectural educators may work in the service of the architectural profession or in the wider community. In the architectural profession, architectural education in many countries is guided or regulated by validation or accreditation. In the community, architectural educators may work to aid citizens or members of a community to become aware of their environment, and their role in its ownership and custodianship.
Architectural Educators are represented by national and regional associations such ACSA in the USA [1] and the EAAE [2] in Europe.
In some cases, architecture itself may become a tool of education, as traditionally practised by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, or as an educational heurism, as in the case of the work of a lesser known figure such as Anupama KundooNomadologist 08:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC). (see below)
Examples of Architectural Educators: