Conveniently enough, there already existed a series of basic design courses taught as part of the undergraduate concentration of architectural sciences. The Arch Sci department occupied a small building by the Charles River. Since this concentration was to be phased out and gradually replaced by courses in Visual and Environmental Studies (VES), the obvious thing to do was to make its courses the core curriculum for the new Carpenter Center. And in fact, when Carpenter Center offered its first program in 1963, approximately half of its courses had been taken over from the old Arch Sci department.

In effect the faculty of the Arch Sci department was transferred to the new Center, too. This was fortunate in light of budgetary considerations: since some of the staff teaching down by the river already had tenure through other departments, Carpenter Center would only have to support them on a half-time basis.

THOSE PEOPLE who worried at the time that Carpenter Center was to become an "adult nursery school" with lots of courses in "finger-painting" were appeased. Emotional release would not be tolerated. And realism was effectively nixed due to the influence of the Bauhaus. "Everything was to be scientific, nothing emotional," recalls James S. Ackerman, professor of Fine Arts and a member of the CPVA. Harvard would teach a language of vision, nothing more. According to Sekler, "In 1960 it seemed the most valid way of going about it."

The format of the design courses during the first few years of the Center's existence consisted of a series of assigned exercises that were intended to clarify certain principles of design. They dealt with such problems as the interaction of color, figure-ground relationships, the modulation of a two-dimensional surface, and color transparencies.

"There is an analogy with language," noted Sekler. "Obviously the person who is going to write poetry in the end must first learn grammar, syntax, and orthography." The logic was that if a person was going to create a work of art, he must first learn such principles as color theory. Instead of waiting for a burst of inspiration, the point was to select a problem, work on it methodically, and in the end the creative moment would arrive.

A crisis was not long in forthcoming. Students who had no intention of being artists most likely found it a great deal of fun to take an introductory design course and do assigned exercises with color-aid paper and tongue-depressors. Yet the VES concentrators themselves began to express real dissatisfaction.

As last year's juniors began to search for thesis topics, according to one student, they found themselves "unprepared to do a large, individual, self-motivated project." Clair L. Marino '73, a VES concentrator, described herself as being "theoried-out." "You didn't even know what to do with a paintbrush," she said.

As a result, a group of concentrators drafted a letter last year to certain VES Faculty. They complained that at Carpenter they found" 'art' being taught as 'design' in a series of experiments." The letter went on to say that although courses on color theory and the psychology of art were offered, there were no courses in painting, sculpture, etching, or on the economic and moral position of the artist. They wanted to see art "taught by artists, not architects, designers, art historians, or Harvard graduates from other fields."

THE COMPLAINTS focussed on basically two issues. First, the students objected that Carpenter Center did not encourage the development of verbal skills in dealing with art, whether through discussions or written pieces. Secondly, they felt that the creative, self-expressive component of their work was understressed. They found the distinction between exercises and a full-fledged artistic statement increasingly difficult to tolerate.

In a questionnaire administered in May, 1972, well over half of the concentrators claimed that the VES department was too theory-oriented. Only 8 per cent said that it was too creation-oriented. Approximately three-quarters claimed that they would like to see the department changed. The verdict--the department should move in the direction of creativity, away from principles and jargon. This meant less-structured studio courses and the introduction of many desired courses in painting and print-making into the VES curriculum.

These sorts of criticism obviously strike at the very ideological foundation of the Center. To ask that it offer courses in painting is almost heretical given its professed anti-art school attitudes. As one student remarked, "Teaching painting would be like teaching Communism." And to ask the department to become more creation-oriented in general is to fly in the face of its expressed statement of purpose. Art was always going to be a happy by-product, if it was ever achieved at all, at Carpenter Center.

Whether the department will respond to these criticism remains to be seen. However, as a result of a VES student-faculty committee on curriculum review, certain changes appear to be in the offing.

For example, an open tutorial system was proposed to allow each concentrator to choose his own project and pursue it at his own pace. The curriculum review committee also requested that course descriptions be revamped to make them more explicit, and that some advanced theory courses be changed to include sections on painting.

In addition, the department is now considering a large introductory lecture course, VES 1, in order to expand its offerings for the non-VES concentrator. The course would be comparable to Fine Arts 13 and would introduce students to a range of concerns from a small-scale visual analysis to an environmental design project. It is tentatively scheduled for 1974-5.

Whether further concessions to student desires will be made remains to be seen. Certainly some of the larger issues are still unresolved.