Architecture at the Edge

On September 11, 2001, the unbridled economic optimism and belief in the stability of a sure future was forever marred with the downfall  of the World Trade Center. Uncannily a metaphor sadistically planned by those who committed this act, trade and commerce on a global  scale and the far-reaching colonization of foreign lands through ‘globalization’ was called into question. Reactionary, as nations recovered  under the fallout of the following wars, overthrown dictatorships and innumerable struggles which emerged, this era of heady profits  gleaned off the ever-rising real estate values and speculative over-saturation of development came to a sudden quiet end on March 13th  2008, as another tower in Manhattan, this time Bear Stearns, fell. In the economic fallout which followed, riots, protests, and popular  uprisings across the globe have been the result as new media outlets give agency back to those hardest hit. Paradoxically, architects, many  of whom were inextricably tied to this now defunct economic system suddenly found themselves with no sources of income as funding for  projects evaporated overnight, leaving a massive internal workforce to support. It is estimated that in 2008 alone the architectural  profession shed nearly  96,000 workers comprising nearly 60% of the total profession. Even today, while other professions have recovered  from the economic fallout, salaries within architecture have largely remained stagnant since 2008. Just as the events of 2001 and 2008  respectively have  generated tangible shifts among disparate and disaffected communities, as architects grapple with these issues, we  must  ask ourselves  how we have been complicit within this defunct economic system; whether our profession maintains its ethical  guardianship,  or, whether we have participated in the devaluation of the profession and if so, what are the steps towards remediation and  ultimately  remuneration, in a post-financial-crisis cultural and economic landscape. 

Historically, architecture has remained relatively unchanged since its concretization as a profession during the formative years of the  enlightenment, when under the economic pressure of mass-production and industrialization, the architect in defense of their livelihood,  participated in the rise of the professional class; whose knowledge and ability to exercise critical rigor and judgment was what gave  cultural  and economic value to this new professional class, separating themselves from the factory floor and those unfortunate  ‘uneducated’ souls  who would become the human cogs of industrial mechanization of the world from within this emerging socio-economic  system. However,  like so many things which seemed to make perfect sense 250 years ago, today seem downright ludicrous.  

One such industry which persists to this day is that of the unpaid internship. In a 2012 article titled “The Intern Catch-22”, published in ‘The  Architect’s Newspaper’, Sam Lubell writes, 

“The unpaid internship has become a staple of architecture. A rite of passage, despite the debt  burden from an education that usually costs more than $30,000 a year. And it’s not just small struggling firms. Even top architects get their  work done by interns. Never mind that offering unpaid internships excludes those not wealthy enough to go without pay, or just the fact  that they are generally not legal. Not offering money lowers the bar all the way down the line. Soon unpaid positions become expected.  The value of architecture is lowered even further.” (1)

Just as the architect moved from the Vitruvian pattern-book assemblages which defined their role in a pre-industrial cultural landscape to  the rationally-minded and juried professional as a response to the paradigmatic shifts in labor, post-industrialization, so too the architect  today, both young and old, must redefine the philosophical role and the tangible practices of architecture if it is to regain its autonomy and  ability to assert the architect’s trans-historic role as public agent. 

The ‘New Generations Festival’ held in Milan in 2013, sponsored by the Chamber of Architects of Milan, several embassies, and  guided by  the research conducted by Itinerant Office, addressed the economic issues many emerging architects face given today’s unstable economic  landscape. In their description of the festival from their website, Itinerant Office concludes, 

“The crisis has changed the work systems of young architects, who upon graduating from university have had to adapt to the new conditions and reinvent their profession.”(2)

For many emerging architects, the unpaid internship, described with distain by Lubell, yet supported in the architectural press by architects  such as Fujimoto, Eisenman, Hadid and others, who have been outspoken in defense of the unpaid internship as “a rite of passage”, are  now caught in a professional waiting room; unable to economically afford years of indentured-servitude, yet similarly under-qualified to  find  paid work within a profession that prides itself on experience in order to make reasoned and knowledgeable judgements. 

More so than in the past, today’s current economic situation saw a drastic rise in the numbers and popularity of the architectural  competition as a relief and freedom for an expression of under-represented talent, through the engagement with the architectural  competition. One such past recipient and one who has undoubtedly benefited immensely from the practice of engaging in this practice is  Farshid Moussavi, whose 2001 winning proposal for a bus and ferry terminal in Yokohama harbor won her and her firm FOA (now defunct)  numerous prized and critical acclaim. In her 2012 ‘Architectural Review’ op-ed piece, “Viewpoints: Farshid Moussavi on Competitions’,  Moussavi echoed the generally held belief among many competition and prize-winning architects that,

 “Architectural competitions are  invitations to make conceptual leaps and to open new frames, speeds and scales through which we perceive space and time.” (3)

However, in this post-financial-crisis, sparking in many ways the re-emergence of architectural criticism, newly emerging voices previously  occluded have risen to the forefront of the debate. Within this discourse, the architectural competition is rendered very similar to the  internship in its ability to de-value and re-prioritize the client’s desires above the architect’s ethical and professional responsibilities. 

One such case was raised by Cynthia Davidson, editor of Log., ANY, and Inland Architect, and the wife of Peter Eisenman, whose 2003  exhibition and symposium ‘Tall Buildings’ presented at the Museum of Modern Art had been planned as a post-moratorium public  exhumation of many of the unselected designs for the World Trade Center highlighted the public’s dissatisfaction with many of the  proposals. Between the panelists of world renown international architects and the public audience in attendance, the discussions waxed  poetically, if not divisively, about each of the proposals effect on the city’s skyline. What was not in attendance was the architect’s ethical  agency, or perhaps any admission that such a discourse inherently favors the views and viewpoints one might have from within a climate-  sealed, leather-padded comfort of a luxury SUV commuting into the city’s financial district from more affluent far-flung suburban  communities, rather than engaging in debates surrounding the ways in which the proposals met the ground, provided yet-unafforded  public space, or even proposals which attempted to heal the massive wounds, both physical and intangible, as a result of the fall of the  Twin Towers. 

Kristian Kreiner, in his 2010. Conditions magazine article, “Designing Architectural Competitions: Balancing Multiple Matters of Concern,”  writes, 

 “The wastefulness of the procedure remains a concern, especially because those who stand to benefit from the exploration, i.e. the clients, are normally not the ones to carry the wasted costs and efforts. Primarily, the waste falls back on the participating architects who do not win, and possibly on society at large.” (4)

As professionals we have participated in the aesthetic lamination of architecture into pure magazine-fodder imagery designed to be seen  from afar, rather than engage with our publics in the productive and functional uses a building and architect more importantly would strive  to provide for. Discussions of how a building look on a city skyline persist, one only has to look to a variety of local architectural project  reporting forums to see this discourse at play; but perhaps as architects we’ve been missing the mark altogether. If we are tied as a  fiduciary guardian to our clients, then to what extent have we neglected to educate, engage, and inform our clients who are willing to  spend more to achieve aesthetic ends rather than funding new typologies, or even demand more productive buildings? 

If our architectural practices, which require the exploitation of free-labor and indentured-servitude  of new generations of emerging  architects under the guise of the ‘internship’ is now an economic  impossibility for many, then to what extent have we as architects pushed ourselves and our own  practices beyond the point at which our work can adequately be paid for? 

In the desire to compete globally, do we lose our own architectural agency internally? 

In a post-modern, post-critical, and post-financial-crisis world where recent events, technologies,  and social movements have marked a paradigmatic shift in the cultural, social, and financial  landscapes within which we inevitably engage, how will architecture and our profession find new  roles, as it did previously during the same kinds of upheavals during the industrial revolution? 

Submission to / Situationist-Local Studio Zine

Published / Spring 2014

#Internship #Competition #Architecture #Ethics #Labor #Architectural Ethics #ArchitecturalIdeals #ArchitecturalAgency #PamphletArchitecture #Zine

Notes :

1. Lubell, Sam. “The Intern Catch-22,” The Architect’s Newspaper (2012).
2. Itinerant Office. “New Generations: Three Approaches to Architecture in Times of Crisis.” Accessed May 1 2014.  
3. Moussavi, Farshid. “Viewpoints: Farshid Moussavi On Competitions,” Architectural Review (2013). Itinerant Office. “New Generations:  Three Approaches to Architecture in Times of Crisis.” Accessed May 1 2014.  generation/new-generation/
4. Kreiner, Kristian. “Designing Architectural Competitions: Balancing Multiple Matters of Concern,” Conditions: Independent Scandanavian  Magazine on Architecture and Urbanism (2010).

References :

Itinerant Office. “New Generations: Three Approaches to Architecture in Times of Crisis.” Accessed May 1 2014.  Kreiner, Kristian. “Designing Architectural Competitions: Balancing Multiple Matters of Concern,” Conditions: Independent Scandanavian  Magazine on Architecture and Urbanism (2010).
Lubell, Sam. “The Intern Catch-22,” The Architect’s Newspaper (2012).
Moussavi, Farshid. “Viewpoints: Farshid Moussavi On Competitions,” Architectural Review (2013).

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