Know your place, Architects.
In the Structure of the Ordinary, Hrabeken describes builders and architects as the agents of change but never the inventor or perpetrator. We have only so much control in so far as we are subject to superior controlling agents; developers, community citizens, an organization, or institution. How much of the built world is the result of an architect's vision or the result of someone else’s with the architect only a means of creation. Program is chosen by the needs of the client or community. The extent of our control is often only formal and even that still is subject to the desire of whoever is being provided the services.
Maybe it is a little egotistical to think that we are anything more than the arbiter between people and the built environment. A pessimistic way to look at this would be to resign to the idea that all we provide are specialized services and should be worried solely about producing what other people want. That all we are some semi-skilled laborers with marketable knowledge about design. I don’t have this pessimistic worldview and I don’t think the profession should either, but I think acknowledging it should be necessary for us to maybe humble ourselves in order to become better architects for others and not ourselves.
Maybe it is a little egotistical to think that we are anything more than the arbiter between people and the built environment. A pessimistic way to look at this would be to resign to the idea that all we provide are specialized services and should be worried solely about producing what other people want. That all we are some semi-skilled laborers with marketable knowledge about design. I don’t have this pessimistic worldview and I don’t think the profession should either, but I think acknowledging it should be necessary for us to maybe humble ourselves in order to become better architects for others and not ourselves.
Another way that I look at this is through the devil’s advocate point of view, what if the built environment is a result of architect’s manipulating people/ clients into the architect’s own
ReplyDeleteview or beliefs? But then again, we are going to school and are knowledgable about this.
I've always thought of it as an architect designing for oneself is designing to further the body of professional knowledge and innovation. While designing for a person or a client, it has always seemed that the architect functioned as a mediator between the client (goals) and professional innovation and knowledge.
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