Architecture: The forever changing profession

One of the things I found the most interesting from this weeks readings was how the profession of architecture has changed over years.  Even more so, our purpose as architects has changed as well.  In the past, architects were called upon to create special places, such as places to worship.  These grand pieces of architecture, many of which we still study today, were what was considered architecture and nothing else.  Housing, and simple structures were simply the built environment and so long as they provided shelter, that is all that matters. 

This is drastically different from today where architects are responsible to designing everything from your home, to even follies that don't even house any people or services. According to the reading, this change started to happen as times have changed and designing the everyday pieces of architecture is now a problem to be solved that is much more complex than simply providing shelter from the elements.  As the built environment has become more complex, our profession has also started to be split into other disciplines, such as construction and engineering.

I find this extremely interesting, and also wonder if this splitting of the profession has caused a hindrance in creativity in some instances.  But perhaps it has not?  As the reading states, "What is common cannot be special, but it can be of high quality.”