Farewell Words from the President Oya Atalay Franck

Dear colleagues, dear friends!

With its mission to advance the quality of architectural education and research, and thus the quality of architecture and the culture of the built environment, EAAE is the leading forum in Europe for generating and disseminating knowledge and information on all aspects of architectural education and research.

In a sentence: We have an IMPACT!

After seven years proudly serving as president of the association, my mandate ends today. It was an intensive, eventful and often challenging time, with the Corona pandemic leading to an unintended prolongation of my time in office and that of other members of the council.

You may recall, when my predecessor, Karl Otto Ellefsen, took over as president in 2014, the association was in a difficult state. It was Karl Otto’s foremost task – and achievement – to re-stabilize the association, to set it back on its tracks and to “mend the gap”, as he put it in his own farewell speech in 2017.

Since then, the association went through major transformations. I say farewell to you with seven take-aways:

1.Our community thrives

We represent a diverse community, open-minded, responsible and dedicated to contributing to a better future and to living gracefully in our societies and cultural ecosystems.

Membership has risen from less than 120 institutions at the beginning of my tenure to a stable number hovering around 150, with schools from all European regions.

The collaboration in the Council and the exchange amongst its members is intensive but always respectful, well-structured and targeted. We have a workplan and rules.

We share common values, and we recognize our responsibility in all actions we take.

2.The association’s financial and organisational situation is sound

From being quite “skinny, almost fragile”, we became “lean and fit”: The balance sheet shows solid reserves. This gives us an excellent basis from which to launch projects of long-term impact and value, such as the new Pedagogy Awards and the Sector Study of Architectural Education in Europe.

The Pedagogy Awards are given in recognition of the dedicated effort that you – the educators and researchers on architectural education – give to your tasks every day, in order to advance and develop. The sector study will fill a critical gap in our understanding of the state of the education, research, and services we provide – which in turn will provide for a better positioning of our activities relating to the larger frame of professional practices and policies.

Our solid finances also include valuable third-party funding for our annual and biennial conferences, our most important platforms for networking and knowledge-sharing. Our conferences are also important channels for improving our visibility. The education and research academies and the conservation network now have the necessary means for holding their workshops, and they receive financial support for publication.

Let’s not forget, however, that most of the work is done pro bono in form of voluntary contributions from you and your institutions.

Regarding day-to-day operations: the secretariat has been professionalized and is operating smoothly. Also, the secretariat will soon be able to provide project-based support – as you know, this is in the pipeline.

3.Our three “pillars” are consolidated

EAAE’s three knowledge-generating “pillars”, as I like to call them, – the Education Academy, the Research Academy und the Conservation Network – have been strengthened both regarding their organisation and their processes. Through their projects and platforms, they continuously provide important programmatic and methodical content to EAAE’s members and the academic and professional communities and help. They have also become important drivers of the joint initiatives and platforms with our strategic partners.

All in all, the activities of EAAE are well-structured and focused and a collaborative work-culture is established throughout our community.

4.We are well-respected and have a strong network of partners and alliances

During my tenure as EAAE’s president, I put a particular focus on strengthening and expanding EAAE’s network, reaching out to a variety of partner institutions to improve both the visibility of EAAE and its influence. Existing platforms such as EAAE’s Annual Conferences and biennial joint conferences with ACSA and ARCC were complemented with new formats such as the EAAE Teachers’ Conference and Deans’ Summit.

Collaboration was sought and achieved with new academic partner institutions such as ELIA and AASA but also intensified with important professional organizations, especially ACE and UIA. Our seminal Joint Awards with ACE, Mies van der Rohe Foundation and Creative Europe – the EUmies Awards for Young Talents – honor not only our European graduates but excellent projects from around the globe. We also collaborate on the VELUX Daylight Awards and Talks, providing further possibilities for the recognition of student work and giving room for valuable contributions from our professional community.

Finally, the NEB Collective 2020 was a huge milestone to connect further to pan-European organizations representing architects, spatial planers, landscape architects, interior architects, engineers, designers, artists, educators and researchers of the built environment. EAAE became an official partner in important projects such as DigiNEB and NEBA.

Here and elsewhere, EAAE is the proud voice of its members.

5.We embrace the challenges that lie ahead with audacity and responsibility

With climate change and disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, we are facing immense challenges that threaten the economic, ecological and cultural foundations of our societies. In order to succeed – to overcome these truly wicked problems – we will have to collaborate more than ever. Inter- and transdisciplinary work is clearly a must.

When facing these challenges, we should remember the title of this year’s Annual Conference in Münster: “LESS is a MUST!” We need to think and move forward from multiple perspectives, open to ambiguity and contradiction. At the same time, we need to reduce complexity and “simplify”, because time is pressing, and we must find solutions quickly.

We need critical optimism, without being judgmental. As educators, researchers and responsible leaders – we are the role models for our students. It is our job to enable them to find their own inner compass, for a future as responsible citizens and professionals.

6.Structures are important, but it is the people that matter

Therefore, to finish my farewell speech, I’d like to say, «THANK YOU! ». It is a long list of persons to whom I am grateful, and if I forget anyone: my sincere apologies!

• • First of all, to the EAAE community and all its member institutions, some of which I had the chance to visit and where I was always welcomed most cordially
  • To Vice President Ilaria Valente, and all members of the council members Claus Peder Pedersen, Dag Boutsen, João Pedro Xavier, Massimo Santannichia, Mia Roth-Čerina, Michela Barosio, Patrick Flynn, Roberto Cavallo, Tadeja Zupančič, that I had the privilege to work with in the last years.
  • Also, to the previous council members Dalibor Hlaváček, Hugo Dworzak, Harriet Harris, Johan de Walsche, and Sally Stewart.
  • I am also thinking of two dear colleagues at EAAE, who have done an immense dedicated work for EAAE, and are sadly no longer with us: Johan Verbeke and Susanne Komossa!
  • Thank you, then, to all core members of the Education Academy, the Research Academy and the Conservation Network especially Stefano Musso and to all of you that actively joined these workgroups and thus contributed to their results.
  • To EAAE’s Past President Karl Otto Ellefsen and all previous presidents and vice-presidents,
  • To our partners in strategic alliances and peer organisations:
    • ACSA’s Presidents – Francisco Javier Rodríguez-Suárez, Branco Kolarevic, Rashida Ng, Lynne Dearborne, Sharon Haar, Mo Zell, Cathi Shar, and its CEO Michael Monti, programme director Eric Ellis
    • ARCC’s Presidents Hazeem Rashed Ali, Chris Jarrett, Adil Sharag-Eldin
    • ACE President Ruth Schagemann and Past-President Georg Pendl and ACE Council Member Dubravko Bačić
    • ELIA’s Past-President Andrea Braidt and its CEO Maria Hansen
    • UIA President Regina Gonthier and Past-President Thomas Vonier
    • Mies van der Rohe Foundation’s Director Anna Ramos and programme director Ivan Blasi
    • European Commission – Creative Europe Policy Officer, Jutta Kastner
    • AASA President John Doyle and its council member Deborah Barnstone
    • VELUX, our main partner for sponsoring, with Per Andersen and Tina Christensen
  • To all deans, heads of the schools and their teams hosting the Annual Conferences that took place under my tenure; 2018 Uni Porto ARQ, 2019 Uni Zagreb Faculty of Architecture, 2020 KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture, 2021 CTU Prag Faculty of Architecture, 2022 UPM ETSAMadrid, 2023 Politecnico Torino DAD, 2024 FHMünster MSA); the same goes for the schools hosting the Deans’ Summits (2021 Oslo School of Architecture, 2022 Glasgow School of Art, 2023 KU Leuven, 2024 Amsterdam Academy) and other joint conferences, workshops, and biennial conferences (Uni Antwerp, Iceland University of Arts, UPV ETSAValencia, Aarhus School of Architecture), to all contributors and participants
  • And finally, to EAAE’s secretariat Céline Monbailliu for such amazing work!

7.Collaboration is at the core

Everything we achieved was only possible because we acted together – with dedication, enthusiasm and SHARED RESPONSIBILITY!

Oya Atalay Franck
EAAE President Aug 2017 – Aug 2024