A conversation about architectural history and non-architectural subjects, and their role and relevance to the design studio.

The authors, one a studio teacher and one a history teacher have been concerned for some time about whether learning from history is transferred into the students' studio work. Many schools of architecture claim that learning from all the subjects outside the studio should be demonstrated in the studio, and that the studio is the meeting point for all the other input. However, the role of history in this process remains unclear and so the authors devised a study to investigate staff and student opinion on this issue, and subsequently they ran a trial to test a method to improve integration that will be published elsewhere in due course. The literature review demonstrates that the relationship between these two disciplines has never been rigorously examined before and that it requires clarification before further claims of integration can be objectively assessed and applied. It does not attempt to answer these questions at this stage, merely to highlight the problems facing investigators.

We have used the term history but acknowledge that this covers other terms that different schools might employ, such as cultural context.