Multicultural Education in Barcelona

Year 2019, Volume: 5 Issue: 1, 31 - 43, 02.09.2019

Ümran Topçu

Abstract

Multicultural Education is generally defined as any form of education incorporating different

cultural backgrounds. Architectural education is inherently multidisciplinary and celebrates cultural

diversity. In many cases, culture is defined in the broadest possible sense covering nationality, language,

religion, class, gender etc. The main objective of multicultural education is to remove barriers for

educational opportunities and promote success for students from different cultural backgrounds. This paper

is about an international workshop held in Barcelona, June 2017, between Universitat Politecnica de

Catalonia/Escola Tecnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona, Bahcesehir University Faculty of

Architecture & Design and Smt. K.L. Tiwari College of Architecture of Mumbai. The title of the workshop

was “BCN Step by Step: Gaudi and his Time”. Twenty-four students from three faculties worked in joint

groups and were asked to create a stop motion video as the end product of the workshop. Growing

popularity of videos for education proved to be right in the case of Summer Workshop 2017 of ETSAB,

BAU and Tiwari College. Thinking and reflecting on Gaudi’s buildings, students had a chance of

experimenting lived space by using all their senses. Sketches and mixed images made up their stop motion

videos. Multicultural collaboration and diversity were the key factors of this group.

Keywords

Barcelona, multicultural education, workshop, slow motion video

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