Since the 20th century, the architectural profession has felt its role in society become increasingly diminished, as various other professions and technologies have overtaken architect's traditional role as builder and as a public professional. With the growth of urbanization, architects no longer had the tools to influence cities and the built environment, leaving the task of mass housing to urban planners and developers. The emergence of the digital computing, CAD, and BIM means that much of the traditional sources of expertise of an architect - the ability to draw and produce construction documents - have been "absorbed" by computing tools. The rise of globalization and investor capitalism further disrupted the profession, as the profession became polarized between small practitioners doing single-family housing and small scale housing, and large, multi-national corporations engaged in the production of super-scale developments, While there are still good buildings that come out of offices of any scale, the polarization means that it is much harder to quantify the architectural profession and see it as a uniform whole. Much like the rest of society, traditional titles and roles have become "disrupted" by technology and global forces; an entry-level worker at a large multi-national firm has very different roles and responsibilities than that of an intern at a small boutique 6-person outfit that only does interiors. 

​It is no wonder that many architecture students, upon graduation from university, have left the field and gone into real estate (to actually develop and finance buildings), technology companies (to keep the digital tools of design within the digital realm and push technological boundaries), government policy (to actually influence the built environment at the policy or zoning level and set design parameters), or industrial design (to maintain control of the design at a human scale). It is no wonder that many others have gone into research or academia, because at the university there is very little need to engage in the messy and sad reality of real world construction and politics. It is no wonder that one of my own professors even warned me that architecture is a hobby for the wealthy, and that most middle-income architecture students become jaded and quit the field. 

Where do I stand in this spectrum? 

A teacher teaches. A doctor heals. A policeman polices. A comedian makes people laugh.
What does an architect do? Really?
I once read a funny story,  about a woman and her professional friends. Her doctor friends can diagnose her and treat her illnesses. Her dentist friend can look at her teeth. Her hairdresser friend can do her hair. Her accountant friend does her taxes. But her architect friend? He can't do anything for her. Can he redo her bathroom? Can he build her a house? Can he recommend real estate property for her? He cannot do anything practical; heck, even her painter friend can make portraits of her. This architect friend can't even draw properly.

I came across this story in college, and I was saddened. The woman in the story was right; I can't do any of those things. I am not a contractor; I cannot build a house or renovate a bathroom. I am not a real estate broker; I cannot find a good apartment for my friends. Even now, as I work as an entry level designer at an office, I realize I still cannot do those things; architects don't actually build, contractors do; architects don't actually develop land; real estate developers do; architects don't actually make structural calculations, engineers do. The only thing, according to the AIA Documents, that architects have full control of, is "aesthetic effect". But what does that really mean? How do I define that? Are we just scamming people for money?

Looking at the field,  one year after graduation, I am not so much jaded about the profession as much as  I am saddened by how little the public actually knows about the reality of the work. Architects draw buildings, and they make money by drawing buildings for people who can pay for them. Architects organize teams of consultants, engineers, contractors, and stakeholders to make buildings actually happen. Architects are salesman selling the world's hardest, most expensive thing to sell - buildings, which costs millions and takes years to be delivered. Architecture is 99% business and 1% design, or  99% execution and 1% design concept. Architects usually have very little say in financial or construction matters, yet we have to hold most of the liability. Architecture is a professional service that mostly coordinates and manages while making buildings 'look' a certain way. This is the little piece - aesthetics - that we supposedly control, but only under the guidance of a client and a willing and able contractor.

No wonder we don't get compensated very well, even after studying so much. We are part-time managers (coordination), lawyers (codes), engineers (basic structural understanding), salesman (business development), and artists (designers), and there's no real way to see if we did our job well, because there's so much that could go wrong, and there's so much risk involved, that there's no real way to learn from any part of it that could have been done better. We seem so far removed from the process, that I am not sure what we can take credit for. 

How do we measure if we have done a good job? Client satisfaction? Return client? Design awards? How well the building is loved?

How do we know if we have done a bad job? Does the building age well? Do people hate it? Is it not generating enough value for our clients?

It seems to me that the only thing that architects are good at doing is telling stories. We tell stories to our clients to get projects. We tell stories to our contractors with our drawings, on how to build our designs. We tell stories to the planning board to get our building approved. We tell stories to the public to get attention and to get projects. We are constantly telling stories, about our clients, about our ideas, and about our work, because besides the THING we are selling - the building design - is never completed when the client pays us; the client has to trust us that we will do a good job and complete the job, and we have to convince people, with our words and images, that our idea is not just good, but the only solution (for any problem).

We HAVE to be really good salespeople, and that means making convincing drawings, convincing pitches, and convincing buildings. There is so much convincing to do, and there is so much risk, and there is so little time. 

We don't get paid a lot because we are risky, and the value is uncertain, and we are far removed from the final product. We cannot guarantee, besides our word, that the design is great, that everything will work, that we have looked at every alternative, and this is the best possible product given the time, budget, and considerations. Our profession relies on trust, because architects sell visions, and clients - and the public - have to come on a risky journey to see the vision through.

 Louis Kahn once famously declared, a brick wants to be an arch. He believed that materials themselves had a "stubborn destiny", a spiritual dimension, and architects had to respect the essence of materials in building. In looking at cities, I cannot help but think that buildings themselves also want to be​ something, or to say something specific. I believe that great architecture is great because they have something clear to say; their intention and execution are tied to a clear position and concept, rooted in a specific place and time. A great building, like a great essay, is supported by evidence (physical constraints, cultural norms, site context), grammatically precise (structurally sound and abiding by codes), and makes a clear and convincing argument (design concept) through their comprehensive reading (compositional organization and intent). (Think about reading a great essay, or listening to a great piece of music, or eating a delicious meal; there is always a setting, a body(argument), and a satisfying resolution.) This literary (semiotic) understanding, or philosophy, of building only works if buildings and designs actually say something. So, what does a building say? 

​Buildings, like other artifacts of culture like art and music, are a reflection of society and its people. As such, the process of creating architecture is deeply rooted in political and economic conditions, and aesthetics is an outcome -- a meditation -- of these conditions. All buildings say something about their place, their owners, their designers, and even its inhabitants. Like clothing fashion, a building expresses values, and architects, if nothing else, help express and establish these values. Because people will always be involved, there Is never truly an abstraction of architecture into pure aesthetics, or individual taste; there will always be larger forces that motivate these design decisions and intuitions.

​What does your city value?

Take, for instance, the tallest building in your city or hometown. What is it? Is it a cathedral? Is it a corporate office tower? Is it a residential tower? Government center? Considering the immense costs behind construction and real estate financing, the tallest building in your city probably belongs to the most powerful people there, during the most powerful time in your city's history. It expresses the values of the city and society, and it demonstrates, very clearly, a very specific political and economic condition at any given time.

​In Washington D.C., it is the Washington Monument, which represents American power and the belief in American democracy at the turn of the 19th century. In Chicago, it is the Willis Tower (fmr. Sears Tower), and it demonstrates the power of private corporations in the United States, especially in the late 20th century.
In Dubai, the Burj Khalifa is the demonstration of state power in the oil-rich U.A.E.
​In Hong Kong, the tallest buildings were for the longest time bank headquarters, such as I.M.Pei's Bank of China and Norman Foster's HSBC. It was not until very recently that the tallest buildings became symbols of the financial exchange system itself, such as the ICC and IFC. 
​In Beijing, the CCTV Building is the second tallest building in the city, and it demonstrates the power and authority of the Chinese state, its vast surveillance powers, growing economic assertiveness, and monopoly over media and contemporary culture. 
In New York City, the second tallest building is not a corporate office building, but is instead a residential building - 432 Park Avenue, which rises 1,396 feet. As a private condominium project, the building is a monument to speculative capital and a manifestation of the global 1%; it demonstrates the ongoing transformation of Manhattan from a business hub to a leisure, boutique city for the wealthy. If in the past, cutting-edge architects had built temples to gods, palaces to kings, monuments to the nation-state, and office towers to corporations, then cutting-edge architects today, especially in New York, build condominiums, often empty, for the billionaire leisure class, for they embody the values of global capitalism, the dominant working framework of today's society.

This reading of a building's "message" is not limited to singular, global architectural icons, however. Generic buildings and domestic houses also tap into larger design trends and ideologies. 

​(Continue in Part 2)
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