Architecture is often described by architects themselves as an exhausting path of study, where pulling all-nighters is encouraged and sleep is sacrificed—in theory—in pursuit of project quality, yet at the expense of mental health.
In this context, on April 18, a group of architecture students at the University of Chile in Santiago held a demonstration protesting the academic overload of the program. After going viral thanks to a Facebook post featuring a series of photos of the event taken by a former student, the protest quickly entered the mainstream media coverage, centering on a hypothetical dilemma between effort and sacrifice.
Speaking with the newspaper Las Últimas Noticias, Camila Núñez, a representative of the Architecture Student Union, explained that "the university psychologist is at capacity. Many fellow students have fallen ill with stress due to the academic workload, and there have been suicide attempts."
Although the faculty updated the architecture curriculum in 2016, Núñez attributes the stress to excessive out-of-class hours spent building models and drafting plans. Francisca Skármeta, a third-year architecture student at the same university, explained to 24Horas that "some people have gotten used to the idea that architecture means not sleeping, not eating well, and that loving the major also means hating it."
Days later, the newspaper La Tercera sought the perspectives of three older-generation Chilean architects. Luis Eduardo Bresciani, the current Director of the UC School of Architecture, argued that "in disciplines with a strong creative component, where there are no formulas or minimum standards, students spend a great deal of time seeking creative solutions. And that takes a significant toll." Meanwhile, Sebastián Gray, former president of the Association of Architects, told the same outlet:
In that impossibility of quantifying work in purely emotional and intellectual terms, an anxiety arises that typically prevents a student, who does not yet have the necessary experience, from knowing when to stop their own work process
Architect Cristián Boza and the former President of the University of Chile, Luis Riveros, hold radically different views. Boza asserted that the protest was "exagerated" and that the exhaustion is the natural byproduct of a field that is "about reflection, options, alternatives, finding oneself, suffering, crying, and pulling all-nighters," while Riveros criticized the movement via Twitter:
Students have no notion of the sacrifice that achieving something like a degree from the University of Chile should entail (sic) [because] they have been taught everything about their rights but nothing about their duties
Writer Rafael Gumucio noted in a column published by Las Últimas Noticias that "creating, inventing, and, even more so, explaining those inventions, is something Chilean schools suppress. It is this demand, coupled with mathematics, law, and history, that characterizes the stress of future architects. They are right when they say that creating takes time and requires leisure, but they are wrong to expect anything resembling mental health from a career like this."
Meanwhile, Juan Pablo Urrutia, Head of the Architecture Program at the University of Chile, urged people "not to confuse effort with sacrifice" in a Twitter thread, and responded to those who condemned the students' demonstration at his university:
It is unacceptable to refer to students as lazy for looking after their mental health or for protesting against an alienated work system that they do not wish to replicate. This new generation knows more about rights than ours did, and that speaks very highly of them
What is your experience? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
This article was written by Nicolás Valencia. The translation is powered by AI.
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