Architecture as a school

The article analyses the problems of architectural education, mechanisms of formation of architectural schools, their peculiarities depending on concrete social and cultural goals. The author focuses on the notions of academic and non-academic school, as well as the interrelation between architectural practice and university leadership. He draws comparisons between world and Russian experiences and describes the personalities of the leaders of architectural schools of different theoretical and socio-cultural types. He proposes a wide interpretation of the current development of the global and the local as cultural paradigms that absorb essentially close, but also internally contradictory attributes that compose a dialectical unity and contradiction. The article describes Russian versions of regional architectural practices, interaction of architectural theory and practice with political power and business, as well as relations between the capital and the province