QUESTION No. 2:
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CALL YOURSELF AN ARCHITECT?
This isn’t an unusual question and it’s one that you may have been asked before. But it’s a hard one to answer. Your first response might be: “How much time do you have?” (Again, answering a question with a question.)
A better answer might be: “I’m really glad you asked. Being an architect means a lot of things, but not necessarily the things you might imagine.” As we all know, there are many ways to be an architect – or an “architect.”
If the questioner is thinking about a career as an architect (without quotation marks), obviously, it’s a great idea and definitely worth pursuing. But offering advice of this kind doesn’t fall within the range of an architect’s “usual and customary services,” so check your PLI policy. If you recommend an architectural career to somebody and it doesn’t work out for them, will your insurance cover you if you get sued? (Risk management is part of being an architect.)
To be on the safe side, you might recommend one of the many books and articles on the subject. A good starting point is: Architect? A Candid Guide to the Profession, by Roger K. Lewis (MIT Press, 1998). Even a seasoned architect will find useful no-holds-barred information in the pages of this book.
But, as mentioned in Question 1, architecture isn’t entirely about creating buildings; it’s basically about having a deep concern for the built environment, solving problems in creative ways and, most important, knowing what questions to ask.
Above all else, architecture represents a way of exercising boundless curiosity in a positive way. For that you don’t need a professional degree.
2a. What is an architect?
This is another difficult and confounding question. Architects practice architecture – that much is clear – but what is architecture, exactly? Here’s a hint: if you ‘re looking for a definitive answer, an architect is the last person you should ask:
Q: Hey, Architect, what is architecture, exactly?
A1: “Architecture is what enables human action, it is like a background, something visible and invisible.” (Alessandra Cianchetta, AWP/ Paris, 2016)
A2: “Architecture is not definitive — it can be anything.” (Moon Hoon/ Innsbruck, 2015)
A3: “It’s a discipline which helps people to live.” (Odile Decq/ Luxembourg, 2015)
A4: “Architecture is a way of thinking about life.” (Peter Cook, Archigram & Crab Studio/ Venice, 2014)
A5: “Architecture is the frame of human existence of omnipotence and impotence. It is by definition, a chaotic adventure. “(Rem Koolhaas, S, M, L, XL, 1995)
A6: “Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” (Philip Johnson, NYT, 27 Dec. 1964)
A7: “Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.” (Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture, tr, 1927)
A8: “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. Living, changing, new.” (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “Architecture and the Times,” 1924)
A couple of conclusions can be drawn from these responses. First, again, if you want a straight answer, don’t ask an architect. Second, you shouldn’t try to define “architect” and “architecture” in a single sentence – not even in two or three sentences. Third, if you’re going to attempt a brief definition, absurdity and poetry are your best allies. Absurdity and poetry figure large in architecture, but that’s another topic. By the way, Peter Cook got it just about right.
Let’s look at this in a more holistic way. Languages evolve, and word meanings change over time. So, architect and architecture have adapted to new, vastly expanded meanings. It’s as though we have all turned into Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” We see this in phrases such as mortgage architects, shoe architects, eyebrow architects (these are real things) and countless “architects” gainfully employed in business, marketing, computer technology, etc.
Journalists love the word architect and never tire of exploring new uses for this once-dignified professional designation – from mass murder to party planning – whatever comes to mind,
The primary value of the 60-minute tape ... is that it provides overwhelming evidence that Mr. Bin Laden and his crew were, indeed, the architects of the mass murders .... – “Bin Laden, in his own awful words,” The Globe and Mail editorial December 14, 2001
The grown-ups got scared. Someone pulled the plug on the band and the next thing we knew, the river police were steering us into port, where we all got shoved around, a few people were arrested and the great architect of the evening, Malcolm McLaren, came down the gangplank screaming: “Fascists!” – “I was on the real Sex Pistols boat – it was Rotten, says Tony Parsons as gig is restaged for TV,” The Sun, 26 June 2021
The widespread, indiscriminate use of the word architect has caused much consternation among professional architectural associations whose job it has been to push back against unregulated use. But resistance, as they say, is futile. Time to move on.
This brings us full-circle, right back to that same knotty question. What is an architect? The meaning of the word has been so inflated that it has retained very little value. If a word can describe almost everything, then it doesn’t precisely describe anything.
Is it any wonder that people get confused? Few people understand what an architect does, but everybody wants to be one. Maybe they should.
2b. What does an architect do?
No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder. – John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol. 1, 1851
When someone asks us, as architects, what we do (i.e., for a living), we answer: “I’m an architect.” This is a perfectly normal and factual answer, but we’ve been asked what we do and instead we’ve answered what we are. The questioner is satisfied and probably at a loss for follow-up questions, and none the wiser.
Most professionals respond this way. It’s simpler to say “I’m a dentist” than to describe the mouths you’ve recently probed and scoured. If someone asks us how we are, they don’t want a medical report. So if they ask what we do, they’re not expecting a CV. That would be time-consuming and boring, and they already know we’re boring because we told them we’re an architect. [See QUESTION NO. 4: WHY ISN’T ARCHITECTURE MORE EXCITING?]
Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes what metaphorical “architects” do (for definition 1, actual architects, see the Introduction):
definition 2: One who designs and frames any complex structure; esp. the Creator; one who arranges elementary materials on a comprehensive plan. [Ed. Note: William Blake thought that God was an architect. Apparently, God thought so too].
definition 3: One who so plans, devises, contrives, or constructs, as to achieve a desired result (especially when the result may be viewed figuratively as an edifice); a builder-up. [Ed Note: Blame this one on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus: “Chiefe architect and plotter of these woes.”]
“Figuratively as an edifice”? Really? An eyebrow? A mortgage? By these definitions, the world is full of architects – not just registered professional architects, but regular people. And maybe that’s OK, as long as they understand what architect means. The architects we need more of don’t necessarily make “a comprehensive plan,” don’t “devise, contrive, or construct,” but think like architects and see the world as architects see it.
2c. How do architects see the world?
Let’s start with this: Do you look on the built environment as a field of opportunities to improve life on earth? Do you look on it as a common asset in which everyone has an interest? Do you think it’s important to create and maintain the most humane environment possible? Do you doubt that architects can do this alone?
Instead of looking for easy answers to standard questions about the environment, do you look for difficult questions that haven’t been asked? Instead of looking for stumbling blocks, do you look for possibilities that depend on the answers to these unasked questions? Are you a hopeless optimist?
If you answer any of these questions “yes,” then you’re probably already an architect, or at least an “architect.” If you’re the latter, be sure not to go around offering architectural services.
And don’t forget that if you’re an architect already and you’re having second thoughts, it’s never too late to move on. Architectural training is useful for so many other things, and architects have distinguished themselves in a range of pursuits. I’m thinking of John Denver, Thomas Hardy, Benyamin Netanyahu, Thomas Jefferson, Arundhati Roy, Lebbeus Woods, Weird Al Yankovic, and many others.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: An architect (no quotation marks) is a person who is licensed to practise architecture. An “architect” (with quotation marks) is someone who brings architectural thinking and an architectural viewpoint to whatever they do. If you’re an “architect” it’s quite important that you not appear to offer architectural services, as this may have dire consequences for the other architects, the profession and the general public. It will certainly call down the wrath of architectural associations.