architects

[gfish]

What does it say that I can't think of a single architect by name that I like, yet three that I despise jump instantly to mind? What is it about architecture that attracts such profound depths of wankery? It seems like other industries manage to combine function and aesthetics with at least some success and only a very small fraction of the pretension.

(For the record: Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry and Le Corbusier, in order of increasing bile.)

Comments

I know architects, I work with architects, let me tell you about architects . . .

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

Having to work with architects, and having wondered about them a lot, I would offer several observations.

First, their education is all about learning to tear each-other's work apart critical. Because it is essentially an aesthetics standard, the "best" is determined by how well you can trash the other guy or gal's work. Seriously, they spend much of their educational career "critically" evaluating piers' work.

So, big difference between engineers and architects:
Tell an Engineer, "hey, I think there might be a better way to do this" or "did you consider xyz in the design yet"? and they will say "really? what are you thinking?" or give a factual run-down of the design considerations and process to date. In engineering, there are often significant differences in design approach/theory, but some basic stuff is either right or wrong, and one has to present some objection reasons for doing something.

Start to question an architect on something and they go into massive defensive mode and immediately counter-attack. It's how they are trained.

Second, architects are frustrated artists. And the way they are employed in their early career just makes them even more frustrated, so that the bad mood they got started with in college just is deepened. Entry level architects (called Interns, I kid you not) are given all the shit detail work that is not all creative or engaging. And they get paid poorly for the privilege, as architecture is still a glamorous profession.

So, third, architecture is a considered a glamorous profession. Look at how many movies feature trendy hot-architects as protagonists. Compare that to engineers. So, few people become engineers out of hope for glamour, or riches, or opportunity to "express their inner (artistic) vision." Architects expect glamour, and money, and get very little of either. They are bitter people. How many people know FLW by name, compared to a famous (?) civil engineer? But only the architects that claw and con their way up into dominance have anywhere near that kind of individual expression or hope of fame. Can you imagine the pressure of being a "big" architect knowing that there is no objective way to demonstrate your designs are "better" than Joe Blow's? The less understandable or approachable your work, the easier it is to dismiss critics as "not getting it." Also, it's flamboyance that makes an architect famous, not solid staid design.

When I was in NY, did see one guy at MoMA that I liked, Santiago Calatrava. Maybe I like his stuff because he’s also a civil engineer and a lot of is some very clever engineering.

http://www.turningtorso.com/
http://www.calatrava.info/

-B.