Time after Time

I came across this title to an article - ‘Moments not Monuments’ (by Craig Martin). Now, I don’t know the article but it’s a great title, and one which has real resonance in the debate about school buildings. The real debate is not iconic versus standardised. The real debate is about schools as monuments versus schools as moments.

Gant charts give us decision points and activity deadlines: turf is cut and steelwork is topped out. Contracts may be completed and ribbons cut, but education is a work in progress.

After all, schools are experienced day by day, moment by moment. It is the success of these individual experiences which mark the success of our buildings. If they are monuments at all it is as monuments to what takes place within them.