Article 7, Spotting Danger in Architecture, April 1






So Architect Denied is still in the womb growing and getting ready for the birth of great common architecture. What do I mean by, "great common" architecture you may ask? I mean the every day architecture you don't have to travel to, like the ROM, image below (how nice, what, not your cup of tea? I like it...)


In answer to your question that you are about to ask me, no, I do not want every building to be a ROM building or even an award winning building or even a semi spectacular building. Great common architecture means cleaning up the architectural pollution that sprouts up like mushrooms in many developing areas. So in our pursuit for great common architecture I would like to discuss producing work (effort) for compensation and which effort to avoid so we can minimize the mushroom sprouting. In my last article I took a bit of a detour and wrote about numbers which is a tool of the architect (I will cover more of that in future articles) But for now there are far more pressing issues like which job to take that will be both benificial to you and your legacy.

Before producing "effort", I mean work, for compensation, most architects go to school and get a formal education.  But I'm going to skip all of that because I cannot influence, control or change in any way school curriculum's nor do I want to. I also don't want to spend time writing articles filled with useless suggestions ( I mean more useless than what I already write)  that will never be considered. It is also my belief that having a degree in architecture does not make you an architect. Many make it into prestigious schools and "write their own ticket to success", as they say,  but that's not architecture either. Education is simply a tool nothing more. So while going to school is important your diploma is just a piece of paper and does not make you anything, unless it says "Harvard" on it of course! With this kind of pedigree, expect much higher compensation and status simply through association! I am kidding of course , those from Harvard have it just as rough as anyone else with an Ivy league degree! (Making light jest here. Calm down I know you worked twice as hard as anyone else for that degree...The "anyone else" people,  I know you also worked twice as hard! Does that cover everyone? Good )

So I'm going to ignore education (kids, go to school!) and start with the stars in your eyes (the ones that get beat out of you in school) I will make a foolish or a noble assumption that your desire to practice architecture is an honest one with intentions beyond your own self interest. Like Diogenes, searching for an honest man, you should be searching for an honest reason to practice architecture, and maybe admit " I know nothing except the fact of my own ignorance". (Diogenes) No? Not ready to admit you may not know it all?






Although I acknowledge I don't know everything, I do feel like Diogenes, who was captured to be sold as a slave and told his captors to sell him to a man in need of a master, so too the architect denied should be hired by those who think they do not need an architect.

 OK digressing with Diogenes and my mission statement. Let us stick to text book operations; I hire you, you work very hard for me, and then I pay you. I'm stating the extreme obvious (as I usually do) for anyone who has worked a single day in their life but in our capitalistic model of fierce competition where only the strong survive, you need to be aware of the many dangers in such a jungle. This may seem like "duh" material I know, but please indulge me. Now I'm not bashing our, "American Way of Life", after all,  I know no other system that does better. But our capitalistic ferocity does lead to other problems that our young architect should know about. Your first job is usually laden with thankless, inglorious, and laborious grunt work, while getting paid peanuts for your tireless services. As I said nothing wrong with that; it's all part of the sacrifice you make when you have no experience and need to learn how things are done in the "real world". The problem comes when we give our tireless efforts to charlatans and greed mongers. You are now unwittingly being used as a tool to promote world architectural pollution while getting over worked and underpaid. The bigger problem is that for every one legitimate employer doing great things are dozens with their own questionable agenda.

So how to navigate such a perilous sea full of sharks and monsters? How do you select a good job when there aren't many jobs to choose from in the first place and you desparately need to make your car payment, student loan and rent. Who has that kind of luxury? What do I say to that? Have patience, don't sell yourself short and wait. Find the job worth killing yourself for. Do your hard work, get put under that proverbial thumb but do it for a legitimate employer with a legitimate cause. What's a legitimate employer and a legitimate cause? Someone who is producing value in the world. Those that are producing value are not solely working to get rich (although that may be a by-product) but have an understanding how their work will impact their community in a positive way. Not every individual in the building industry lives by those standards; sprawl, strip malls, roadside clutter cluster, are all testaments to just how many in the industry really don't care about their community. Some of that horrid planning is done by a few misguided individuals; bottom line designers, planners and developers but that can only account for some of the mushroom architecture so prevalent in our communities. The rest of the problem lies with good, albeit naive people unwittingly helping the pollution for the many reasons I have noted above and in past articles.

Work for the "cause" , even if you are getting worked to death; your future pay pack will be enormous. What should you never, ever do? Rationalize any terrible job for the sake of getting by, stepping stone stuff, the need to pay the bills, someone else will just do it, but don't you do it. So you may ask, "how will I know what is a legitimate employer"? You will know, trust your instincts. But sometimes you won't listen to your intuition and you need to learn the hard way just as I did. My first day of work at such a place involved being handed a yellow lined pad of paper, a number 2 Ticonderoga pencil, being walked over to a cubicle in a windowless room and asked to design a building in a couple of hours-"I'll be back later to pick that up"  RUN!!! Run for the door and never come back! I unfortunately endured a few months before I left. But had I read an article like this I would not have lasted a couple of hours, dare I say a few minutes, before I would have split. However you, the reader are being faced by Diogenes, he's pointing  his bony  finger (or face in this case) in your direction and a flash of blinding light fills your eyes, your neurons are firing on all cylinders to the warning you have just been given.



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