Architecture as a Profession

In recent years there have been several external forces that which have influenced the nature of professional practice of architecture. They include the impact of the recession, with its repercussions of unemployment and project curtailment, increases in productivity through the introduction of computers, telecommunication, and other electronic media, the decline in the perception of the architect's value, and loss of turf to other professionals. This paper will focus on where the profession of architecture is headed, with respect to discussing possible solutions to these problems.

In 1993, the distinguished Italian architect Giancarlo De Carlo was awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects. In his acceptance speech, De Carlo describes the transformation of architecture from the vanity and arrogance of the past to a responsible engagement with society and the environment. According to De Carlo, the old technology, which yielded glorious results until the first quarter of this century, was found of necessity on an attitude of "exclusion." Due to practical limitations, structural engineers tended to minimize the variables under consideration, so they began excluding those that were more unpredictable and unstable--and were left with the more uninteresting possibilities. Architecture is also facing the crisis of the great political systems which had founded their fortunes on the predominance of econom

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and it has still not shifted upward enough to the satisfaction of many firms. Many architects and architectural support staff have been laid off. In Boston, at least 25 percent of the architects have been estimated to be out of work. In Southern California, residential construction was down 32 percent in 1990 (McGuigan and Springen 60). For example, at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, volume dropped more than $100,000,000 since 1989. In 1991, this firm laid-off 200 people in their Chicago and New York offices. The firm of James Poshek in New York is half the size of what it used to be. Many other firms have clients that are rooted in the now depressed commercial real estate market. Often clients want projects, but they cannot obtain financing--or the tenants pull out of the lease. One architectural firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF)--a star firm in the 1980s--has even tried to put investors together with clients in the hope of creating a new project for themselves. KPF laid off nine percent of its 210-person permanent staff in 1991. Furthermore, competition for scarce projects is attracting large numbers. For example, when the trustees of the Evanston, Illinois Public Library announced a competition to design a modest $17 milli

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