Having investigated Princeton's architectural heritage, students of Professor Basile Baudez's fall 2024 course ART 291 / URB 291 / ARC 291 “Competing Professions” have created an online exhibition to share their discoveries. 

Throughout the course, Baudez and students traced the evolution of the rivalry that ensued when “architect” and “engineer” stopped being interchangeable terms in the early modern period. 

“Students hopefully will have a better understanding of the built environment that surrounds them, question the nature of what is a profession, think about the nature of architecture always oscillating between science and art." 

— Professor Basile Baudez 

Ultimately, each student researched the work of one figure with ties to Princeton, using archives in the Mudd Library and Department of Art & Archaeology's Visual Resources collections.

Titled Redefining Architecture: Stories of Those Who Broke the Mold, the online exhibition is the product of that work. Though Baudez had intended for the course to culminate in an online exhibition, the students drove its ultimate form and content.   

“The idea of building an online exhibition was conceived first, but its nature and the type of projects that would fit in came from the students,” said Baudez. “They learned to design everything.”

Baudez was thrilled to see the enthusiasm and dedication students brought to the project. “They spent many hours in Mudd Library with the documents,” said Baudez. “I was also very impressed by the degree of autonomy they achieved: they all chose the architect on which they would write, chose the angle that interested them the most, and chose all the visuals and documents to showcase in the exhibition alongside their accompanying text.”

Practice of Art major Madison Davis '26 especially enjoyed working on the project. “I have done art history research in the past, but not in this specific form through archival research,” she said, adding, “I really liked the interdisciplinary focus of the class and the research itself.” 

Baudez conceived of the course to give students a fresh perspective on the boundaries between professions as we understand them today. “Students hopefully will have a better understanding of the built environment that surrounds them, question the nature of what is a profession, think about the nature of architecture always oscillating between science and art,” he said. 

“This course made me realize I can historically look at the intersections of art and science, and not just take into account what is happening now between them in my research as an artist." 

— Madison Davis '26

With a strong interest in STEM fields, Davis appreciated Baudez's approach.  “This course made me realize I can historically look at the intersections of art and science, and not just take into account what is happening now between them in my research as an artist,” she said. “I think this interest and my practice as an artist gave me a unique perspective on talking about architecture and engineering and how both can be art in their own ways.”

Baudez celebrates the interdisciplinary collaboration that his course cultivated. “The class was well balanced between students majoring or thinking in majoring in engineering or computer science and art history or practice of art majors or future majors,” he said. “It was wonderful to have systematically both humanities and STEM students bringing their own expertise and interests during our discussions and in the final research. I think that they all tremendously learned from each other.”