Unpaid internships are a systemic issue, not an architectural one. They are a symptom of the relationship between markets, labor, and value. Calling for an erasure of unpaid internships is calling for ethics inside a system that rewards exploitation. How can we change this? What tools do we have to evaluate our options as they are right now?
Protect students from accepting unpaid internships. Notice I didn’t say “students shouldn’t accept unpaid internships”. Why? Because that is pure victim blaming. Of course students want to try and work for their heroes! It’s a big part of how all the great architects we learn about in history became great architects. You know, how Frank Lloyd Wright worked for Louis Sullivan, and how Neutra and Schindler worked for Wright. Plus who hasn’t wanted to spend a summer in New York living in squalor. It sounds like an adventure when you’re 22! But you know what is also an adventure? Getting dental insurance and buying a house.
Architecture as a culture must shift so that the practice of working for your heroes is also an ethical one
It's not just the students who need to turn down these opportunities; the onus is also on their advisers to look out for their best interests. Architecture as a culture must shift so that the practice of working for your heroes is also an ethical one. Plus, it's always good to remind ourselves that there is a ceiling to what you can learn from a master and finding your own voice is the goal.
The “it's good for your development” attitude needs to die right now. Simply living barebones and striving to make ends meet is not a showcase of a hard, motivated worker but a showcase of one’s emotional manipulation into a more efficient labor-producing machine. It’s one thing to eat some microwaved noodles for lunch every now and again, but it's a whole different discussion when a master's degree costs between $30,000.00 and $120,000.00 on average. When students are spending that much on education, they rightly expect to be comfortable. There is no excuse for them not to be comfortable as billable workers in the production of architecture.
Not a fan of unpaid internships, but surely accepting a low paid stipend-based internship with an avant garde practice must be thought of as an investment with a high return? Very few opportunities fall into this category. I know some of my readers are playing this game right now and I want them to know how rarely it's advisable. I’m on thin ice here, but I want to be useful. On rare occasions I have advised a friend to take a low paid stipend-based internship. We’re only talking 3 months on average and, if they can make it work financially, (say by living with a relative or what have you) the experience can vastly improve one’s skillset and network. This is faster than one semester of education which, by the way, costs a hell of a lot more than a low paid internship.
Know that by [taking a low paid internship] you are perpetuating your privilege in architecture and that you should be obligated to work to change that in the future
Know that by doing this you are perpetuating your privilege in architecture and that you should be obligated to work to change that in the future. One must face the fact that if you can ‘make it work’ you have the resources of an exceptionally small number of people on this Earth, though you may not feel like it because you're in a privilege echo chamber. This is more obvious when you realize you’re essentially gambling that the place in which your underpaid to work will become a high-profile office and the fact that you were there in the golden years will be a bargaining chip used down the line to ask for more money. On the flip side, seeking only a big paycheck in architecture is a one way ticket to bland khaki-wearing corporate practice. In any case, if the internship won’t have everyone fighting to hire you or ask you to give a lecture in 2 or 20 years, it's not worth it. It rarely has been in the past, and probably won’t be at all in the future.
That’s because in the future people offering unpaid internships will see their reputations memed into oblivion. It's actually already happening through social media. Before the AIA, NCARB, or RIBA can take action against an architect, the damage can be done via shareable bits of online content. The recent cancellation of Junya Ishigami’s lecture due to the use of unpaid interns has validated the work of online communities dedicated to the betterment of architectural labor practices. These communities are organizing using memes as a rhetorical device to both discuss and spread these ideals. The @Arch_Lobby is the most substantial organization fighting this type of abuse. The account @archishame keeps a record of emails sent out to students on behalf of architecture firms setting their stipulations for internship. I invite any doubters to scroll through that feed and see for yourself if this is a healthy practice.
View this post on InstagramSanaa. #archislavery #architecture #unpaid #internship @adamnathanielfurman @dezeen #archishame
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All that being said, the goal here is to get rid of unpaid internships. In order to do this we must share and open up critical dialogue and awareness via social networking. We must recognize our own privilege which helped us get to where we are and pay it forward to someone who doesn’t have those resources. We must stop participating in unpaid competitions. And of course, go get f*^cking paid!
Ryan Scavnicky is the founder of Extra Office. The practice investigates architecture’s relationship to contemporary culture, aesthetics, and media to seek new agencies for critical practice. He studied at L'Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and DAAP in Cincinnati for his Masters of ...
12 Comments
While I wholeheartedly agree that any business should be paying their staff and that any business not doing this should be publicly ousted and be fined/prosecuted to the full extent of the law, I have some issues with the mindset of this article. Architecture and especially high end architecture is an art which in any society be it capitalism, socialism, communism feudalism ect. is a luxury not a necessity. Not informing students that engaging in art as a profession will not lead to a comfortable life as art, being a luxury, will always be pursued mostly by those with privilege and a means to afford a lifestyle with low compensation. To paint students as victims or say things like a degree in the arts that costs a lot entitles them to a comfortable life is nonsense. Teaching the idea that everyone deserves a comfortable life and that’s it not something they will have to work at and be smart about regardless of how many labor regulations we implement is the true evil here. Talk about privilege and entitlement.
funny take. this is exactly why architecture needs to stop being treated as an art. if we lose that self-righteous mindset, we'll be able to move forward without making the claim that comfort isn't actually a human right. it is. your comment feels fine in the first half but then you feel the need to moralize us with your "this is the way the world works" boomer attitude. did OP say you don't have to work for a comfortable life? i think you're projecting. let's stop pretending art or architecture is some detached luxury when it's so interlinked with power
Thinking that being comfortable is one’s right and not something that will need to be worked for is exactly what will make someone be a permanent victim. Ousting predatory businesses is great but while not simultaneously teaching students that having a “comfortable” life is their responsibility and in their control, probably won’t see much improvement.
I'm sure OP would agree with that for the most part. but it's also one of those things that can quickly lead to victim blaming, something he brought up in the beginning. not that a victim complex is that much better, though.
Interesting take here guys. I think I agree with the "expectation to live a comfortable life". I mean, we do need to work for our conditions, they won't be handed to us. The victim mentality is one that seems to arise from this line of thinking as you're saying. Although I'm not sure about the "architecture as art" bit. I get where you're coming from. But this is more of a pedagogical idea, isn't it? Some schools preach the "avant-garde" while others are a bit more practical. After all, by definition, architecture is an art AND science of building (at least a definition at risk of being overly simple). What do you guys think?
The reason I resist “architecture as art” is because it seems to function as a claim of a certain infallibility, that by virtue of being an art it is beyond critique. I understand the simplification of architecture as art+science because it sounds like the whole left brain right brain dichotomy combined into a well balanced profession, but when it comes to deeper implications, it seems to be a good excuse thrown by architects that what they’re doing is somehow neutral and of high value in and of itself. It allows us to detach from socioeconomic structures that allow developers to have free reign. Cultural value is super hard to define, so when some developer or architect plays up the artistic or cultural value of their work, they don’t even have to explain why, because it’s vague in the first place. It just play the tune the client wants to hear, that their huge investment will pay off beyond investment and “make an impact.” TL;DR artistic value is used by PR machines to massively inflate the perceived value of their profit-oriented schemes, and manipulate the public more often than no
t.
Archi-dude I appreciate your perspective. A sense of entitlement pervades the american culture not just architecture. One's time ought to be worthwhile but so should experience. Life is a negotiation I think.
Getting paid for obne's work is not an entitelement.
Re: Archidude
Dismissing the single-ego architect hero structure that continues to undervalue those who work 12-14 largely unpaid (for those on salary, over 8hrs in US) hours/day and without credit, by lecturing a new generation of architects/designers/architecture students about being “lazy”, perpetuates the gatekeeping that will always support the unpaid internship. It makes Architecture practice unsustainable for those without the support of privilege/an expensive university name on a diploma/trust funds, how many $1000s did we all leave grad school with? In the US NCARB requires the terminal degree to become licensed, corporate architecture firms require licenses for promotion, small big-name firms, do not support the young designer with adequate compensation, and in the case of NCARB and AIA, undermine our value with an outdated licensure process and lack of advocacy for their members.
I dunno, how long are we supposed to just work so much for so little? Just because those “in charge” don’t value what Architects do. If we are artists, then we shouldn’t require a terminal degree, or 1000s of hours of “intern” hours supervised by a licensed architect, or hundreds of hours to study for exams that are totally outdated and expensive. Blech.
Or you can just leave architecture and go into an adjacent industry and stop complaining.
I do think that yes those higher up should stop offering the unpaid internships, but in regards to the victim blaming of students that choose to take them, I think its a stupid decision and I never cared if my peers took unpaid internships while I worked somewhere else that did pay me. I used my internships as full-time work experience, but also a time when I could save the most money for use during school and also doing the things outside of architecture that I enjoyed and enriched my life. If im not getting paid, I'm seriously going to sit at home and do nothing before I go to some hot shots office and do unpaid work. I'll take my chances on moving up in the arch world before I do that.
1. Architecture is a craft, not an art.
2. The right to a basic, decent living including clean air, food, water, and health care is unalienable. We need to work together to make everyone's lives better, not crush others underfoot to advance ourselves.
3. This has nothing to do with luxury. One way or another we all work for the rich. Excessive charges for your insurance, home, rent, health care, food, etc. all go to some fat assholes who just lie back and collect the rent. Every time you buy a bottle of ketch up raft of commodities brokers go ca-ching.
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