Hierarchy in Architecture

Democracy, though often touted as the perfection of government, not actually a good way to govern. Tyranny by the 51%. 

In architecture, this is obvious by the fact that a committee can neither design nor build a building. There must be hierarchy - as in the rest of human society (and buildings). Hierarchy as a part of the natural order. Without hierarchy, there is chaos or uniformity - neither very good for architecture. Sorry end of tangent.

By whom and for whom are buildings designed and built? I think the simplest (and I am a very simple thinker) answer is : they are designed by whoever is hired to design it, and built by whoever is hired to build it, and the building is for whoever pays for it. Obviously this is an oversimplification, especially the latter half, but it's a starting point. 

Generally, those who pay for a building have the largest input in what kind of building they want built - even if it is ostensibly for use by others. Those who have interest in pleasing others (developers at least need to attract renters) built to what they think those users will want. Others, more ideologically driven, build what they want others to want. Still others build to impress, or as some sort of wealth or status symbol. 

Can a building really be built "by the people, for the people"? I think not. To start, "people" is far to broad a category. So, can a building be built "by users, for users"? Sometimes, perhaps. I would say usually people don't know how to build a building - so they hire others. And we are back where we started. 

Let's approach from another direction. Should the public have more say in what is in the public realm? I would say yes. Architects (or builders or whoever) should have at least some awareness of what buildings are beloved (or at least tolerated) in the area in which they are building. They should have some knowledge of how the intended users use buildings. It is not a perfect solution, by any means. At least ugly buildings get torn down after a bit. Not very eco-friendly perhaps, but we should learn to build human and time-friendly buildings. 

Ironically, despite all our discourse, this is the sort of stuff that seems to get built the most.