“What is your ambition?” – this is the question that Professor Raphael de Saeger, Doctor Honoris Causa of UTCN, asks all future graduates of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism from Cluj-Napoca during their diploma defense. The recurring inquiry may seem somewhat straightforward, but the complexity of the responses has constantly extended since the Belgian architect first became a member of FAU Cluj-Napoca’s diploma committee, more than fourteen years ago. The educational relationship started as a part of our school’s international conference, QUESTIONS, with the guest professor soon becoming an active and essential component within our faculty’s academic process, contributing to the augmentation of Romanian architectural education with European values. One of the most interesting ways in which the professor honors or school is, however, less formal – and so, it comes as no surprise that among our students and teachers he is best known by the informal, shortened version of his name – Raf. Therefore, since he first became a part of the diploma committee, Raf started a personal tradition, which would become a red thread connecting all the graduates who defended their final school project in his presence. Besides offering constant constructive advice, and explaining to the students the social, cultural, and natural implications of their design, Raf drew an individual sketch for each project which he observed, trying to capture within a drawing the essence of the projects. He did this systematically, within identical sketchbooks, year after year, diploma session after diploma session, gathering fourteen years of student ambitions within the pages of the sketchbooks. As these visual journals represent an honest portrait of our faculty, we propose an analysis of how the school’s transformation has been influenced by this international collaboration, using the professor’s sketchbooks - which have since become the object of an honorary publication - as a lens towards the impact of his educational contribution. The paper will follow a qualitative and quantitative approach,  evaluating the impact of this significant academic relationship.

Keywords: Honorary professor, sketchbooks, diploma projects, education, architecture school.