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FLW and his beef with the AIA

x-jla
x-jla

Once again he was ahead of his time and apparently our time as well.

Dec 6, 12 3:16 pm  · 
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Well said.... "Feeling that the architectural profession is all that 's the matter with architecture, why should i join them?"  - Frank Lloyd Wright!

Dec 6, 12 9:32 pm  · 
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wonderful.

Dec 6, 12 11:41 pm  · 
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x-jla

crazy that the same complaints about the profession go way back...  I have no problem with the AIA, but I bet that FLW would really hate what NCARB has done to the process of licensure, being that he himself took an unconventional route in his career.  He seems to believe, as I do, that unconstrained non-sanctioned learning often yeilds the greatest results.  He was afterall a product of montessori education as a kid.  Playing in the "sandbox" is worth more than taking a test of fulfilling some ridgid pre-determined path.  When we create a pre-determined safe path, we create a mediocre path to entry. If there are no boundries to how we can learn, then there are no boundries to what we can learn.  The beurocratic and ridgid process of licensure, which favors professionalism over creative individualism, has constrained the organic development of architecture by restricting diversity and awarding conformity.   As he stated... 

 "Students must go into practice of architecture too cheaply--go ready-made either by rule or rote by way of some preferred educational institution and a license after spending too many years in service to a (perhaps mediocre) professional. Only then is he "licensed" to build. His experience is here reduced by inorganic regulations and rules to servitude--a requirement of his services as architect. Therefore, most of the novitiate thus "licensed" are not builders because of ability, good background or depth of character; they have no proved capacity for the long, patient experiment in work which should be theirs when they start to practice." -FLW

Dec 7, 12 11:36 am  · 
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Thayer-D

"If there are no boundries to how we can learn, then there are no boundries to what we can learn. "  This is a bit romantic when one considers that it's responding to constraints when some of the most intelligent solutions have been born.  Remember that FLW was a clever marketer who went to great pains to create a myth about his formation that differed greatly with what we now understand of his "schooling".    Not to poopoo your point too much though, I agree with you completely that NCARB is a racket.

"The beurocratic and ridgid process of licensure, which favors professionalism over creative individualism, has constrained the organic development of architecture by restricting diversity and awarding conformity."  Route learning some technical materials for a series of tests shouldn't be blamed for the failure of an organic development of architecture.  Most of the blame lies with our schoolin that while it professes values of unconstrained intellectual learning, seems hell bent on allowing only a certain output from it's students.  Why does school work have such a similar abstract conceptual bent?  Becasue it "symbolizes" freedom with out actually providing it.

Dec 13, 12 8:26 am  · 
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x-jla

This is a bit romantic when one considers that it's responding to constraints when some of the most intelligent solutions have been born.

There are plenty of constraints in society that we must adapt to.  Pre-existing constraints on the "problem" at hand is a given, but placing manufactured constraints on who is or who gets to be the "problem solver" is counterproductive and ultimatly limits the potential of the art as a whole.  Without a pre-determined path, and all the false promises that come with it, only the most determined and passionate would attempt it.  Little billy boy's momma would suggest dental school, and if little billy was mediocre he would listen to his momma.  This is how we filter in the best true artists and filter out the "career seekers."  Maybe if we did away with the false perception of a "safe path" with all its supporting institutions, we wouldn't have a billion arch grads.  Maybe I'm just a bit liberatarian, but once we introduce concepts of royalty and tribal security we limit natural selection.  We get population booms.  Our survival is less based on our own merit and more so on our association with the tribe.  Nature clearly illustrates this .

Dec 13, 12 12:21 pm  · 
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x-jla

evolution slows or stops and we all become less fit.

Dec 13, 12 12:29 pm  · 
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zonker

or "insufficiency is increasingly the mortgage on freedom"

                                                                                         FLW - 

Dec 13, 12 3:00 pm  · 
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