Professionalism as a State of Mind December 19, 2013
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, education, employment, essence, principles, survival.Tags: AIA, architects, architectural education, architecture, profession, professionalism, professionals
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Back in summer, architect Rob Anderson tweeted:
@Architect1122: AIA will be emerging professionals, now or later.
Erin Murphy AIA, the Director of Emerging Professionals at AIA National in Washington, DC tweeted back:
@erinmurphyaia: I argue this point every day.
Because I teach large undergraduate and graduate architecture lecture courses at a major state university, I get a pretty good look – at least number-wise – at the future make-up of the profession.
And what I see concerns me.
It’s not their intelligence. Most are very smart.
Nor is it their work ethic. They clearly work hard.
And it’s not for a lack of talent that they got into a competitive university.
What concerns me is this:
Being a professional requires an independent mindset.
In this age of collaboration, to be a professional means one has to think for oneself.
That’s not to say that they cannot seek advice. In fact, having people and resources you can turn to is a critical part of practice.
When starting a firm, for example, it’s important to line up a support system including a banker, management consultant, accountant or bookkeeper and an attorney.
And yet, to be a professional means not to be swayed by outside forces.
Architects cannot, for example, take kickbacks from contractors.
In fact, for an architect to receive payment outside of the client and still be considered independent, they should never accept a finder’s fee, share contractor’s profit or accept rebates from suppliers or manufacturers.
For an architect to be considered independent, they shouldn’t receive payment outside of the client.
There are other factors that distinguish the professional. Academically, an attribute of being a professional involves knowledge that is more than ordinarily complex and is an intellectual enterprise.
Being a professional means that one will apply theoretical and complex knowledge to the solution of human and social problems.
And to be a professional means that you will pass your knowledge to novice generations.
What concerns me about the current crop of students is this:
For them, being professional is conditional.
If you give me an A, I will like you.
If you make the assignments a breeze, I will give you a good teaching evaluation.
Give me what I want, and I will acknowledge you outside of class.
I will tell you what is important to know and what is not. Not you.
Here’s the thing:
Professionalism, like your mama’s love, is unconditional.
You have to love what you do and act from that passion.
You have to think for yourself and not be swayed by outside forces.
Each week, I had my professional practice students write a journal entry on the online blackboard course site.
I’d ask them to provide feedback on a guest lecturer’s presentation or a reading we had discussed in class.
Then I’d read each and every one.
Most of the students thought that these journal entries were a waste of time – and told me so.
I actually believe they were incredibly important indicators of who will and will not become valued professionals in the years to come.
Many of the journal entries told me what the student thought I wanted to hear. For example, in order to reach the minimum word count, they usually repeated the question or questions, and unnecessarily provided background information – the equivalent of throat clearing before getting around to a speech.
I warned them in class about providing “boilerplate” content – information one could find online or elsewhere without much effort.
Most ignored this advice.
I told them what I was interested in was their opinions. Their points of view. I wanted to hear about their experiences – and what they believed in.
The students who did this grew exponentially from the earliest journal entries to the last.
They were able to express themselves in writing. They were able to incorporate content that they had learned from other courses, or from experiences outside of school.
Others merely phoned-in their entries. They showed-up at the online site, usually at the last minute, as though to fulfill an obligation – one that was obviously not as important as the other demands on their time, especially design studio.
I saw reading 82 journal entries each week for 16 weeks – 1320 essays in all – as a gift.
It gave me a perspective into the future of the profession – like looking into a crystal ball.
Some of what I see concerns me, but I also like a lot of what I see as well.
I wish I had a dozen openings in my firm because I would hire at least that many students based on their journal entries alone.
Based on their writing, logic and critical thinking, based on their ability to articulate their feelings, communicate and care, we can rest assured that our profession – and the AIA – will be in good hands in the years ahead.
The others who merely showed up – they will have to decide what is important to them.
My whole contention in my professional practice course is that you cannot act one way at one time and act another way at another time.
As an architect, you’re more slab stone than laminate or veneer. Who you are on the outside is who you are inside.
Being a professional is something you take with you – it is the way you carry yourself and handle yourself not just in class, or in the office, but all of the time.
Whether you think someone is looking or not.
One day, I accidentally double-booked my calendar and didn’t sync my iCal. When my student showed up for his schedule timeslot, I apologized and told him I had another meeting I needed to go to, and asked if we could reschedule?
In my experience, there are students who handle this situation graciously, and others who will make you feel like a total heel.
The first type of student is, in my opinion, well on their way to being someone others will want to work with. Their level of maturity and perspective – their ability to suppress their disappointment, and to think in terms of the other person’s needs – is what distinguishes them.
They place long-term relations above expressing immediate feelings.
I will want to work with them because I know that I will continue to be imperfect and make mistakes in the future, and will want to work with people who are understanding, who handle the situation maturely, reschedule and move on.
For our profession and industry to thrive, we’ll need to send the message that to be a professional, you’ll need to do more than graduate from an accredited program, put in office time and pass an exam.
To be a professional means to behave in a way, even when alone, as though someone else is watching.
Because someone probably will be.
Bridging Gaps That Don’t Reside in Building Skins December 6, 2013
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, career, change, education, management, transformation.Tags: academia, AIA, architects, Architectural Record, bridging gaps, career transitions, change, detailing, educators, joints, practice, SAIC, speaking
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Negotiating a book contract, writing and giving conference presentations, proceedings, and journal articles, along with teaching my college courses, I overbooked my calendar this fall.
What resulted for the first time in my public speaking career, I gave a talk at an AIA conference that I didn’t prepare for.
And by that I mean, at all.
I spent three months preparing for my keynote at the 2013 AIA Illinois Conference in November.
But my breakout session later that morning – Through Architecture We Bridge Gaps by Embracing Change?
Not so much.
And wouldn’t you know, it was hands-down the best talk I ever gave.
Or I should say, that the attendees gave.
Because the success of the session was due in no small part to the attendees and the lively discussion that ensued.
The subject of the talk – caulk – really seemed to strike a chord, and the architects in the audience shared lots of examples from their own careers.
The Culture of Caulk
In over a hundred talks I have given around the country, I never had a talk bestowed with the strongly sought-after HSW designation.
Until that November day.
The session offered attendees 1 AIA/CES HSW lu because the AIA powers that be thought the talk was on applying caulk.
The session description starts off thus:
Architects know that the most vulnerable parts of a building enclosure are the joints, connections or gaps between two building systems, and spend an inordinate amount of their time trying to successfully fill them.
The institute officials probably read that first sentence and thought “caulk – that’s good for an HSW LU.”
But had they read on, they would have realized it was a metaphor. And you don’t get HSW LU’s for metaphors:
While their designs and details are fortunately airtight, there are many other gaps that remain wide open and unresolved.
Still about caulk, right? It continues:
These gaps cannot be addressed by architectural technology because they do not reside in building skins, but in the education, training and practice of architects: gaps between academia and professional practice; between internship and licensure; between mentoring emerging professionals for leadership positions; and ever-widening gaps facing those concerned about career advancement and firm succession, including practitioners in all phases of their careers.
Uh oh…
Using the metaphor of the detailing of building joints, this presentation will show attendees that they already have the skills, tools and mindsets to successfully bridge the seemingly unbridgeable gaps at their various career stages, reconnecting training with practice, management and leadership in our architecture firms and those we serve.
So it appears that you get the coveted HSW when you speak on caulk, but not when you try to solve entrenched issues in architectural careers.
Hopefully posting this here won’t result in attendees’ HSWs being revoked.
All Detailing is Joints (apologies to Patrick Moynahan)
I told the session attendees that we’re here to talk about another type of gap.
And the need to bridge these gaps – through architecture.
I told them this session is participatory (code in speakers’ circles for my being totally unprepared) – I don’t have all the answers: none of us does.
But, I offered, as a believer in the collaborative process, all of us might.
I am your presenter, I continued – but so are you: I am here to facilitate a discussion (because I didn’t prepare one.)
I showed some slides of nifty bridges from around the world, hitting home on the point that it is possible to cross over necessary career transitions with panache.
What Gaps Require Spanning?
Does it help to think of our career transitions as gaps that require spanning and/or bridging?
And whether we’ll attempt to fill them metaphorically with caulk – or silicone sealant?
One such gap is between academia and practice.
Do we agree that it needs bridging?
I mentioned to the attendees that the past weekend the SAIC Design Educator’s Symposium in Chicago was such a gesture in bridging with firm visits, Archiculture film viewing and panel discussions.
Architectural Record featured an article recently on how the phenomenon of transformational change—in technologies, systems, materials, sustainability, management, and demographics—is unfolding faster in professional firms than it is in higher education. This gap is a concern.
The article offered remedies:
- more practitioners should teach
- more faculty should be professionally licensed
- business and management skills need to be introduced in the studio
- no longer does tenure benefit students
- real estate finance should be a basic part of architectural education
- heavier doses of reality, not theory
- practitioners and architectural educators should work together
Another gap that requires spanning is from emerging professional to firm management.
One of the firms I worked for had a Sink or Swim (vs. training and mentoring) approach to bringing up project managers. When an employee graduated from emerging professional to management, the firm would throw them in the deep end and, well, stay afloat or sayonara.
Gaps We Need to Bridge
Other gaps need addressing, especially those between:
- internship and licensure
- mentoring emerging professionals and leadership positions
- technology and reality, or
- digital technology and building technology
- men’s and women’s salaries
- those concerned about career advancement and succession
On this last gap, SAIC’s Chuck Charlie (@charliechuck) tweeted:
How do we resolve the gap between the old guard now leading the industry, and the digital-native emerging profession?
Perhaps the biggest gap that needs spanning is this: Where our industry is today and where our industry needs to be.
Namely, adding value, reducing waste, growing and become more resilient and profitable.
That’s a bridge worth crossing. And as designers, we ought to be able to span it with panache.
The Architect (2012) January 8, 2012
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, architecture industry, BIM, change, employment, marginalization, technology, the economy, transformation, transition.Tags: academy awards, BIM, CAD, George Valentin, Hollywood, oscar contender, Peppy Miller, silent films, The Artist, the oscars
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Last night I had the opportunity to see Oscar contender, “The Architect,” a film whose story begins in the late-CAD era.
“The Architect,” whether you consider it a screwball comedy, a sentimental melodrama or a spoof, is a 2D black-and-white film that has received a great deal of praise from critics.
The story is a simple and familiar one
The story focuses on a declining male starchitect and a rising starletchitect, as CAD grows out of fashion and is replaced by BIM.
A valentine to early computer-aided design and drafting, “The Architect,” stars leading man Jean Dujardin as a CAD-using starchitect named George Valentin.
At the top of his profession, Valentin meets eager would-be starletchitect Peppy Miller.
She dreams of success in architecture, invests time in learning BIM, and as her demand rises in the industry, Valentin’s shine is eradicated.
Architect Valentin faces untold obstacles: the fickleness of the public’s changing taste, the adoption of disruptive new technologies, waning powers that come with age, competition from fellow industry professionals and unemployment, among others.
Faced with the economic insecurity of the Great Recession and technological change that threatens to make him obsolete, George is being crushed in a vise grip all too familiar to mid-career architects.
Refusing to adapt to the onset of BIM, he puts all his money into one last CAD production.
George has owners in the palm of his hand, at least until BIM arrives
It turns out George isn’t well-suited for BIM, not least because of his mindset and attitude, dependence on 2D CAD and archaic drafting style.
But BIM is perfectly suited to a vivacious ingénue named Peppy Miller, who crosses paths with George, first as a fangirl, then as an intern in the office of his firm.
In 2009, just after Wall Street crashes, George’s studio stops making CAD documents.
The studio head announces the end of production of 2D CAD documents, but Valentin insists that BIM is just a fad.
It’s fitting that the next time he meets Peppy, on Rapidograph Studio’s main stairway, she’s on her way up and he’s on his way down.
When the studio head lays-off all his 2D CAD starchitects, George decides to open his own office where he could work in CAD.
His project is submitted on the same day as Miller’s new BIM project, and Valentin is ruined.
His wife kicks him out and he moves into an apartment with his valet, while Miller goes on to become a major 3D starletchitect.
“If that’s the future, you can have it!”
However reassuring excursions into bygone golden ages may be – whether drafting in pencil or CAD – they carry with them the potential for revisionism, soft-focus complacency and the refusal to embrace uncomfortable but necessary change.
This is why some critics are grumbling about “The Architect,” which has won a cache of critics’ awards and looks to be a contender for the Best Picture Oscar.
Whereas naysaying design professionals can appreciate the fond look back at the medium they adore with equal devotion, they inevitably see “The Architect” as an all too-comfortable 2D nostalgia trip that represents stasis rather than genuine innovation, provocation or artistic risk that working in 3D enables.
Those skeptics may be missing a modest but meaningful truth buried under “The Architect’s” surface and story, which is that George’s plight could easily be transposed into any modern-day profession or industry.
In one of “The Architect’s” most poignant scenes, George plays a character sinking in a cement pour, an aptly desperate metaphor at a time when so many architects feel they are in over their heads.
It’s a film that taps into our anxieties as we encounter seismic economic and technological transformations.
Having just witnessed his first BIM model, George says at one point:
“If that’s the future, you can have it!”
He could be speaking for an entire generation of architects who feel as if they’re in mortal danger of being left behind, forced into early retirement they can’t afford — literally or psychologically – or leaving the profession altogether.
At the risk of revealing a spoiler, it turns out all is not lost for George.
Disappointingly, it involves a work-around – when everyone recognizes the only way out is the way through.
“The Architect” may be drenched in the romance and visual values of CAD’s bygone era, but it’s a motion picture uncannily of its time.
(Apologies to critics of “The Artist,” which – like this post – is a shameless pastiche.)
Architects 2Zebras Top 10 Posts for 2011 December 31, 2011
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, BIM, books, career, change, education.Tags: AIA, architect, architects, architecture, influence, knowledge, Michael Graves, Myers-Briggs, Richard Foqué
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Architects 2Zebras ended 2010 on a down note and readers let me know it, many of whom came to Zebras expecting positive, uplifting posts.
Not walks down reality lane.
You made it clear: there are plenty of reminders of how hard it is out there for architects and no one needed reminding.
You needed encouragement, resources and guidance.
I heard you and responded with a year’s worth of what I hoped would be more helpful posts.
Here are the ones you responded most positively to.
Thank you for sticking around, engaging and helping to make this another great year at Architects 2Zebras!
In Search of another Type of Architect
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/01/29/in-search-of-another-type-of-architect/
A response to an article entitled “A Difficult Character” about how, when a leadership consultant reviewed the Myers-Briggs tests of 100 architects, he discovered there really is an “architect type” — and maybe a difficult one.
Architecture’s Star Making Machinery
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/04/17/architecture’s-star-making-machinery/
In Princeton in the ‘80s, I twice lived in – or next to – Michael Graves home and office. Here’s what it was like.
49 Ways to Increase Your Influence as an Architect
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/02/26/49-ways-to-increase-your-influence-as-an-architect/
The End of the Architecture Firm?
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/08/27/the-end-of-the-architecture-firm/
This post received a very strong response, in part because – despite the title – its message was ultimately positive and empowering for architects.
Doctor, Lawyer, Architect, Fail
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/02/
Ask not what our profession (and AIA) can do for us. Ask: What can we do for our profession?
The Architect’s New Titles: to Use or Abuse
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/05/14/the-architect’s-new-titles-to-use-or-abuse/
Re-titling it turns out is no longer just for cars. Architects, in an effort to distinguish themselves in a competitive market and work environment, have started to call themselves different things.
Architecture’s Two Cultures (AND a Crucial Third)
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/05/01/architecture’s-two-cultures-and-a-crucial-third/
The Gifts of a Son of an Architect
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/03/13/the-gifts-of-a-son-of-an-architect/
Why Didn’t You Teach Me How to Practice?
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/11/21/why-didnt-you-teach-me-how-to-practice/
A Lifeline for a Profession Adrift
https://architects2zebras.com/2011/05/07/a-lifeline-for-a-profession-adrift/
In-depth review of Building Knowledge in Architecture is a new book and lifesaver by architect, educator, researcher, scholar and poet, Richard Foqué.
Why Didn’t You Teach Me How to Practice? November 21, 2011
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, career, change, education, employment, IDP, pragmatism.Tags: architecture education, architecture school, bridging the gap, education, IDP, Intern Development Program, law school, lawyering, training
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What architects don’t get from architectural education has to be made up in practice.
But can it?
That’s certainly the intention of Intern Development Program (IDP), the comprehensive training program created to ensure that interns in the architecture profession gain the knowledge and skills required for the independent practice of architecture.
Setting aside the validity in today’s economy of an independent – as opposed to integrated – practice of architecture,
Is the office the best place to train to become an architect?
In firms, these days, almost everybody draws.
And everyone is as close to 100% billable as humanly possible.
No more can architects consider themselves “knowledge workers,” unless that knowledge includes working knowledge of such software programs as AutoCAD or Revit.
With many architecture firms pared down to skeleton staffs, training is a luxury few can afford.
And teaching recent grads on a client’s dime is something most clients will no longer tolerate.
Building clients have never warmed to the idea that they are footing the bill for an intern’s education on the job.
As one senior designer said to me over coffee, rather loudly with an emphatic pounding on the table:
“Work is not school! Not school! Not school!!!”
Tell that to any firm that has set-up and administered a corporate university.
Building bridges
Neither academia nor practice, we’re beginning to see emerging entities that are starting to fill-in the gap, gaping hole or (for those attending Cornell) gorge between architectural education and practice.
Hybrid education. Just-in-time education.
Enroll in the equivalent of a four-year lunch-and-learn.
Don’t pass go don’t collect 200 dollars go straight to jail.
At the same time, we’re seeing bridge students who take-up architecture and engineering; or engineering and construction management; or architecture and an MBA, to help segue between academic and real-world pursuits while presumably making themselves more attractive to an employer.
Perhaps it is best that training – whether in continuing education or in practice – stay outside academe’s ivy walls.
Training is still seen by some as parochial, vocational.
In some academic circles “practice” is a dirty word.
Why sully your pristine education with practical consideration?
Some architecture schools won’t have practitioners on their faculty so as not to infect their student body, as though practical considerations were a disease.
This, despite the fact that practical knowledge is a job requirement on the road to becoming a full-fledge professional, every bit as much as residency is for a doctor.
Before building-up $150,000 in student loans, would-be architects – in most states – know that they will have to pass through an apprenticeship prior to sitting for the licensing exam.
Remind me: What exactly did you get for your $150,000 education?
Learning in school vs. learning in the gap vs. learning on the job
Architects like to think that they are alone in many things, not the least of which is their inadequate education and training in the face of a constantly moving picture of practice.
They are of course wrong: they have plenty of company.
This is evident in the many parallels with other areas of study.
Just consider these quotes:
“What they did not get, for all that time and money, was much practical training.”
“Schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful”
“Professors are rewarded for chin-stroking scholarship”
“They are (practitioners) in the sense that they have…degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”
First-year associates at one…firm “spend four months getting a primer on corporate (practice.) During this time, they work at a reduced salary and they are neither expected nor allowed to bill a client. It’s good marketing for the firm and a novel experience for the trainees.”
“This has helped to hasten a historic decline in hiring.”
“The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design.”
“One 2010 study of hiring at top-tier…schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced…for a single day.”
“The academy wants people who are not sullied by…practice.”
“Where do these students go?…There are virtually no openings. They can’t hang a shingle and start on their own. Many of them are now asking their schools, ‘Why didn’t you teach me how to practice…?’ ”
These are just a few quotes from the New York Times article, “What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering.”
They sound remarkably – and uncomfortably – close to what architecture students go through.
What is one thing you wish recent graduates, interns or emerging professionals were taught in architecture school?
- A better understanding of ___________
- Greater familiarity with ____________
- Deeper knowledge of _____________
- Basic skills, like how to perform ______
- A stronger grasp of _______________
Let us know by leaving a comment.
The Architect’s Missing Manual August 28, 2011
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architecture industry, BIM, books, change, identity, IPD, marginalization, survival, technology, the economy, transition.Tags: AIA, AIA documents, The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice
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Do you remember yours?
My first was the twelfth.
That is, the twelfth edition of The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice.
That was the last edition to be offered in four separate three ring binders.
White, grey and red.
And crisp, with an off-center AIA logo super graphic emblazoned across the front.
I read the entire contents cover to cover to cover to cover.
Here, I thought, at last was the architect’s missing user’s manual.
After 4 years of undergraduate schooling and 2 years of graduate school, I still didn’t completely understand all that an architect was and could become.
And with the deep blue “backgrounders” ample history of what the architect once was.
For the first time you sensed that you belonged to a long tradition.
One that you were proud to be a part of.
Here, at last, contained in four binders was “the answer.”
There it was, in red ink on the first binder:
“Volume 1: The Tools. The Architect. The Firm.”
It would never again be so simple.
Nor so innocent.
Volume 2 was even simpler.
All it said was: “Volume 2: The Project.”
Could it be laid out any more straightforward?
The last two binders contained facsimiles of the AIA documents.
Here was the be-all-and-end-all D200.
“The checklist” that promised to give you a step-by-step explanation of every move you would make, from initial handshake to final handoff.
That was 1994.
In 2001, the thirteenth edition of the AHPP was issued.
And it was a new world. For the US, and for architects.
The contents were reduced to a single bound book.
With the AIA Documents sequestered to a CD-ROM.
And for the first time, the edition was printed on the binding – henceforth resulting in readers referring to the AHPP by edition.
[The twelfth was known by the three-ring binders.]
If the twelfth edition was for me “Paradise Found,” the thirteenth was “Innocence Lost.”
The table of contents said it all:
“Part 1: CLIENT.”
“Part 2: BUSINESS.”
The first 9 chapters were devoted to markets, marketing, financial operations and HR.
All good. All much-needed.
But the AHPP no longer told us who we were – or who we could become.
Not in our own right, anyway. But instead, we only existed so long as we had clients.
No client, no architect. And while practically we understood this to be true from a business perspective, the architect was clearly no longer front and center.
The off-center logo of the twelfth edition now had been shifted almost completely off the cover, so to speak.
The architect – in the first 250 pages – was almost nowhere to be found.
The center – had there ever truly been one – did not hold.
Each architect had to discover and define who she was for herself.
The fourteenth edition, printed in 2008, returned the architect to their rightful position in the AHPP.
“PART 1: THE PROFESSION.”
“PART 2: THE FIRM.”
And so on. But by the time this last edition was delivered, the world’s economy was in disarray with architect , profession and industry scrambling for survival.
The fourteenth edition, thick as a tombstone, was a memorial to what the architect had been.
What would become of the architect was anyone’s guess.
And while we suspect who the architect is – and will become – will have something to do with BIM, IPD, sustainability and digital fabrication, many architects would sooner be defined by their unique attributes, by their education or experience than by technological or global trends that reside outside themselves.
With the world in flux, the industry and profession in transition, and who or what the architect is or needs to be anyone’s guess,
I do not envy the task the esteemed architects and educators who are undertaking the next – the fifteenth edition – of the AHPP.
There has never been a more important undertaking for our profession than the definition of who the architect is and needs to be in the immediate future.
Here is how you can help bring about the new edition of the AHPP.
What can you do to help?
Help shape its intent and content by taking a short survey.
The deadline is coming up quick (Wednesday, August 31) so take a couple minutes right now to answer a couple questions here.
…
What is your first memory of the AHPP? Has it been of use to you at any time in your career? If so, how? Please let me know by leaving a comment.
The Architect’s Journey August 13, 2011
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, change, marginalization, questions, survival, technology, the economy.Tags: AIA, architect's journey, carl jung, frank gehry, hero with a thousand faces, hero's journey, joseph campbell, sydney pollack
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A few years back, right before the economic downturn, the AIA came out with a promotional piece entitled The Architect’s Journey.
The pamphlet was subtitled “Exploring a Future in Architecture,” with the focus on becoming an architect.
Then came the upheaval.
Whereby merely remaining an architect today is a hero’s journey.
Not ‘hero’ as ‘architect-as-hero’ in how director Sydney Pollack presented Gehry in Sketches of Frank Gehry.
But rather hero-as-in-heroic.
To be an architect today requires bravery, courage, ambition – qualities rarely discussed in these do-all-you-can-to-stay-on-the-boat days.
Architect’s careers once followed archetypes common to what Carl Jung (CJ) or Joseph Campbell (JC) might have called “the hero’s journey.”
Mythic structures that all architecture careers follow.
Something along these lines
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. (Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, p.30)
Mythic, that is, but not formulaic.
Recognizing that each individual has their own story of how they arrived at where they are
- The Call to Adventure
- The Road of Trials
- Meeting with the Mentor
And so on.
And yet, with
- the convoluted process of earning one’s architectural stripes, stamp and seal
- the downturn in the economy and the subsequent loss of colleagues and mentors
- the inevitable flattening or organizational hierarchies
- the loss of loyalty on both ends
- the advent of new technologies in the workplace
- work processes redefined
- design itself becoming more collaborative
- risks, responsibilities and rewards shared
Can it still be said that an architect’s career path has a recognizable structure?
In terms of storyline, can it still be said that one’s career has a dramatic arc?
Or – in lieu of former goals to attain one’s license, start a firm, win recognition from one‘s peers – is one’s career closer to an undulating succession of successes – and travails?
Becoming an architect is one thing.
Remaining one is something else.
There are many impediments one faces everyday
- Unwitting clients
- Unappreciative public
- Demanding employers
- Insensitive plan reviewers
- New technologies and work processes to master
So many hurdles, in fact, that to remain an architect today you have to be driven from within.
And possess a fire in the mind.
Only, for perhaps the first time in our storied history as a profession, one has to wonder: is that enough?
Some other questions to consider:
- How important are myths to the architect today?
- Do you believe that a career in architecture can still have an underlying mythic structure?
- Is it still possible to create careers with mythical power?
- With eyes glued to monitors and seats to bouncy balls, could it still be said that architecture – as a calling – can be something more than the daily struggle to honor the bottom line?
Architecture’s Two Cultures II May 10, 2011
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, identity, pragmatism, technology, transformation.Tags: anthony vidler, ARCHITECT magazine, architecture school, education, integrated design, practice, professional practice, theory, two cultures
2 comments
Not everybody agreed in my recent post that architecture’s two cultures are “high design” and “high delivery.”
But there was a consensus that there is indeed a rift in the profession.
A split that starts with the way we are trained.
I taught architecture from 2001-2007 in the graduate program at The School of Architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago.
An ARE refresher course, a Professional Practice course and the Integrated Building Science/Design Studio with Dan Wheeler FAIA.
For all the prep work it entailed, and the marathon 4-hour classes, I especially loved teaching this last course.
More importantly, I believed we had discovered the Holy Grail that would successfully bridge education and practice.
I was wrong.
In 2006-2007 Sarah Whiting served as visiting critic and at the school year’s end, she presented her observations of the school to the faculty.
Which boiled down to this: it was neither fish nor fowl.
Neither known for design nor technology, the school, in her eyes, fell something short of either.
There are a number of ways the faculty could have reacted to this information.
East coast elite academic theorist frowns-upon industrious Midwest architecture program,
Was how they chose to take it.
Her comments played to the low self-regarding intellectual underachiever in every Midwesterner.
The faculty took it hard and were faced with a choice:
Don’t even try to be all things.
Pick one and run with it.
Director Robert Somol soon after came on board and brought with him a culture change.
Taking sides
Integrated Building Science/Design Studio was a tough course and made demands on the students. No doubt.
Stretching their design and technology chops at one and the same time, the pressure took a toll on its students.
That said, their design projects were both innovative and real, the outcomes admirable.
But with their new director the direction was clear:
You can’t be both great and real.
Choose one.
Choose great.
Because real’s not our brand
Cool won out over cool + buildable in school.
Just as cool wins out over cool + billable in the profession.
I personally am looking forward to when the pendulum swings back toward reality, as it inevitably does every 10 years or so.
When style goes out of fashion.
I plan on heading-up the integrated design program when it does.
You’re invited to stop by to sit in on the design reviews.
We’ll be inspiring future architects who are needed by the world, not just by other architects.
The school got rid of these courses because they didn’t fit the brand.
And what is the brand?
High design.
Architect, what is your brand?
World, what is our brand?
What we talk about when we talk about integrated design
One year, after an end of year graduate design jury, I was asked by my fellow instructors to select from the 60 student’s 30 projects what I believed to be the strongest design.
My first mistake was going first.
Given the combined, integrated building science/design studio make-up of the course, I selected a project that I felt was the best from both perspectives:
Strong design/strong buildability.
The project was good, even excellent, on a number of levels; and it had integrity.
It was a project that, if built, would have improved the world in some small way.
That could not be said of every project.
Wrong answer.
The 3 other instructors, in cahoots, selected a pure Miesian jewelbox – a project that, to anyone outside that room, would be hard-pressed to distinguish from a dozen others.
But the consensus was telling:
What we talk about when we talk about integrated design is style.
Say what?
In the May 2011 Architect magazine is an article entitled A New Theory War?
The fact that the title ends with a question mark will prove telling.
“If academic debates over style have quieted,” the subheading reads, “a divide persists between the proponents of practice-based and theoretical instruction. Two prominent educators argue the respective merits of these approaches.”
Or do they?
Ted Landsmark, President of Boston Architectural College (BAC,) wrote about practice in Learning Through Experience.
Anthony Vidler, Dean, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union wrote a piece on theory entitled Thinking About Architecture.
It becomes almost immediately apparent that something went awry in the execution of this article.
The fact that the two are arguing for the opposing side may have something to do with it.
Or the fact that these educators are supposed to be debating how much importance theory should have in a curriculum,
Except nobody appears to have bothered to tell them that that was the assignment.
Read the article.
Whether a typographer’s mess-up or editor’s oversight, the practice piece is more theoretical than the thinking piece.
And vice versa.
In the practice piece, Landsmark – who is supposed to be speaking about practice-based instruction – provides us with a veritable shopping list of the latest buzz words and smorgasbord of cited sources and unnecessarily complicated explications.
There’s mention of “design thinking,” “theoretical constructs,” “students…working in empirical contexts” to “reverse the degradation of our ecosphere.”
The word “architect” or “architecture” doesn’t occur until the 4th paragraph.
Where is “building science,” “building technology,” “professional practice,” “collaboration,” “integrated practice,” “integrated teams”?
The piling-on of terms doesn’t answer the question:
Does practice-based learning have a prayer against design theory?
In comparison, Vidler’s piece is vastly more practical and practice-minded, well-reasoned and balanced.
And his was the theory piece.
“There seems to be little argument that practical wisdom holds a necessary place in the curriculum,” opens the second paragraph, putting an end to any doubts.
And any reason to continue reading.
With this article there was an enormous opportunity to discuss the strengths and weaknesses, benefits and challenges, of the two cultures.
And how together they might lead to the architect’s renewed leadership position in the industry.
And that opportunity was squandered.
We’re left hanging with the question, unanswered.
And – as with the integrated studio tossed aside in favor of the brand – a sense of loss for what could have been.
If only we had chosen what is real with what we know to be great.
Architects 2Zebras 
