SUMMARY

This interview with Alberto Perez-Gomez covers his career across a wide range of institutions. He began studying early at the National University of Mexico and the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico City. Next, he briefly did graduate work at Cornell but then opted to study at the University of Essex where he broke through intellectually. Perez-Gomez transitioned into teaching, first at the Architectural Association in London, then Toronto, Syracuse, Houston, Carlton, and finally McGill. He recalls how different schools were defined by contrasting pedagogical cultures and how being on the wrong side of those divisions could endanger a teaching career. For instance, at Syracuse, he discovered that Werner Seligmann, committed to a formalist pedagogy derived from Rowe, as well as, John Hejduk and Robert Slutsky’s at Texas, decided that Pérez-Gómez did not fit the standard and asked him to leave. Yet only a few years later, at 33, he became Director at Carlton University as a result of being nominated by students and colleagues from Toronto who had admired him. He explains that his pedagogical approach, honed over decades but most fully realized at McGill, is deeply shaped by hermeneutics and phenomenology. For Pérez-Gómez, architectural education is not just about technical competence but about cultivating meaning through dialogue. This model, he argues, has positively impacted the McGill master’s and doctoral programs as many graduates have gone on to significant academic careers.