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?
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?
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