A while back, we talked about how our ability to communicate as creative people can sometimes make or break our success. Effective communication is one factor of life as an architecture student, but another one is in how we face up to a jury of people ready to critique our work. It is something sure to cause most new students to melt in anxiety. The moments leading up to a review can be filled with uncertainty and worry. Standing in front of a group of people and presenting something we’ve created can be daunting, and we brood over the stamp of approval we yearn for. Our primary preoccupation tends to be a fear of looking bad, of not appearing smart, capable, and competent enough. And the need to be seen in this favorable light is what often encourages the uneasiness that swells within us.
To fight this, we must modify our view of the jury and the part they have to play in our development.
Late one evening in 1936, a 16-year-old Charlie Parker walked into Kansas City’s Reno Club, ready to show its patrons what he was made of. Parker had been rigorously building his chops on the saxophone, teaching himself complicated forms of improvisation and dreaming of revolutionizing jazz music. This was his chance to finally shine. On this particular night, Jo Jones, the powerful drummer for Count Basie’s Orchestra, was playing at the club, and Parker would have a chance to jam with him. Ten years his elder and naturally more seasoned, Jones would be a formidable force for the young musician to keep up with.
Waiting in a line of other eager musicians, Parker finally got his turn and ambitiously joined the rest of the band. Jones carried the pulse, driving the group forward, and Parker nailed the initial changes of the tune, introducing some nuanced passing chords and embellishments of his own. But then, the inexperienced unschooled saxophonist lost his place in the song, was playing over the wrong chord changes, and began to drift off tempo, throwing off the rest of the band. “Everybody was looking, and people were starting to say, ‘Get this cat off of here,’” said Gene Ramey, a bassist who was there that night.
Jones stopped playing, took his cymbal off his kit and banged it on the floor by Parker’s feet, signalling to the oblivious musician that it was time for him to stop playing, it wasn’t working out, he wasn’t cutting it. Parker jumped from the cymbal crash and got startled, and the whole club burst into laughter, humiliating the young boy. This night was not the night he would show the world what he was made of. He left the club, and with the dismissal of everyone there, contemplated what his next steps would be.
Typically, the biggest fear before facing a jury is the fear of looking like a fool in front of all of your colleagues and the jurors. In such a highly intellectual setting, we dread the thought of being seen as unintellectual, or incompetent, or even unworthy. We give the jurors the power to bestow this approval upon us. If they are happy with what we present, then we had a “good” critique, we tell ourselves, and if they do not like what we’ve shown, we’ve had a “bad” one. Because isn’t that the measure of success in these things? To have everyone approve of what we’ve done?
The purpose of the review is to learn and develop...
The purpose of the review is to learn and develop. And the purpose of the jury is to help facilitate that development by providing an outside perspective, challenge your ideas, and engage in a fruitful discourse with you about your work. Facing a group like this teaches us how to face different personalities, something that will be invaluable in professional work. Some people on a panel can be intense, direct, and intimidating. Some are even mean-spirited, egocentric, and seem to purposely seek to tear students down. But, there are also those who are kind, encouraging, and uplifting. You will likely face all types during your time in school.
Jo Jones didn’t have to throw his cymbal down on the floor and humiliate Charlie Parker that night. Parker experienced our worst fear, he thought he was going to impress everyone, but instead got laughed off the stage. What did he do in response? Go cry in a corner? No, he joined a band, studied harder, and got better. A year later he showed up at another jam session, and displaying the fruits of his labor, played a historic breathtaking solo. “Before the thing was over, all the guys that had rejected him were sitting down with their mouths wide open. I had seen a miracle. I really had. It was something that made tears come down my face,” said trumpeter Oliver Todd about the session.
Sure, Jones was “mean,” but Parker took it as motivation to get better, he focused on his personal development. Sometimes, architecture can promote this culture of idolatry, where the more successful or accomplished individual has some kind of power over us. It’s the same in jazz. Jones was highly respected and revered by other musicians, it was the ultimate blow for him to disapprove of Parker’s playing. Imagine, Rem Koolhaas “throwing his cymbal” at your feet because your work was so off base. But, like Parker, we should see such a reaction as a sign that we need to improve, buckle down, and get to work.
We want to do our best to judge the accuracy of what someone says instead of basing our reception on whether or not we like them as a person.
While Jones’ gesture is said to have been more playful than malicious by those who were there that night, he still provides a good example of the fact that a juror is a flawed human being just like we all are. They aren’t special, or more important, or more valuable in some way. Chances are, they have accomplished more than you have at this point in time, have put in more work than you, and can in some way help you become better. This is what we should focus on. Even though their style might be off-putting, what can we learn from them? We want to do our best to judge the accuracy of what someone says instead of basing our reception on whether or not we like them as a person.
School is not the time to prove ourselves, but rather a time to absorb and learn. Yes, we need to perform well, but often, humility is the best way to combat a fear of judgment. We want recognition for the hard work we’ve done all semester, but we should be seeking feedback on what we need to get better at, what we need to work on or refine. As we suppress our desire for recognition and embrace our need to be critiqued, harsh judgments become a point of intrigue rather than offense. It was the Greek philosopher Epictetus who said that it is impossible for us to learn that which we think we already know. He’s right, there are too many students in school who think they are Bjarke Ingels or Zaha Hadid. When you start your first job and meet that man or woman who has been an architect longer than you’ve been on the planet, things get put into perspective.
When we adopt a learning mindset during these reviews, all of a sudden, a “bad” review ends up being a good one, an insightful one, because we’ve learned what we need to improve on moving forward. Become a sponge and absorb everything around you, as you grow, you can discard what doesn’t work for you.
We often forget that the people on a jury are exactly that, people. They all have their own hopes, fears, and dreams, just like you do. For the most part, they are there to help you, but each person has their own idea of what that looks like. Some feel that giving you a hard time will help “thicken your skin” or “toughen you up.” Others feel that guiding you to a more abundant way of thinking is more helpful. It all varies depending on the personality.
We must realize that the juror also has pressures of their own. Often, they are thinking about how they are perceived by you, your class, and the other jurors. They don’t want to look like fools in front of their peers either. There is an obligation to provide some kind of profound insight or wisdom to you and each one of your studio mates, and that can be daunting and burdensome. Most of them will forget about you and your project in a week’s time and reenter their own complex and multifaceted lives. “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help,” Abraham Lincoln said. Gender aside, let’s remember that these people are here to help us, that’s not such a scary thought, and the best way for them to help in this setting is to critique.
Sean Joyner is a writer and essayist based in Los Angeles. His work explores themes spanning architecture, culture, and everyday life. Sean's essays and articles have been featured in The Architect's Newspaper, ARCHITECT Magazine, Dwell Magazine, and Archinect. He also works as an ...
9 Comments
Awesome read Sean! Each moment you face a jury, a boss, or a client is a moment to learn from and practice. The important thing to remember is to be true to yourself, and don’t always try to please everybody.
Thanks for the note and your insight Michael!
I completely agree with your call for humility. The problem is schools and the media tend to promote the starchitect over good humble work. They see people all around them faking it until they make it.
"there are too many students in school who think they are Bjarke Ingels or Zaha Hadid."
Where would they get the idea that these people are the ones to emulate, high school? If you see people being "torn down" and publicly humiliated, who will walk out there without a shell that keeps out the learning you advocate for? I don't know how or if this can change this but your posts certainly help.
Thanks Thayer! It’s a tough phenomenon for sure. I feel in our culture today we focus so much on outliers (tech billionaire entrepreneurs, starchitects, etc.) that our measure of success is a bit skewed. But, I have hope that smart individuals who think for themselves can overlook this tendency. As always, I appreciate your thoughtful remarks, they really contribute to the conversation and focus of each piece.
Another great feature, Sean! I appreciate the Charlie Parker story, not having heard that one before. Now, I'd like to suggest a challenge: can you take an episode from Miles Davis's life and use that as a springboard? One of my favorite stories has him driving an open top Ferrari in Manhattan one fall afternoon. Davis glances over to his passenger seat and sees what appears to be cocaine on the seat. He jams on the brakes and abandons his car in the middle of traffic. He leaves the car running, key still in the ignition. He then runs into the nearest building and rides the elevator for a long time, thinking that the cops are going to bust him. Turns out that the cocaine was actually snow.
Thanks! I’ve never heard this Davis story! If a time ever comes that this fits into something I’m exploring I will definitely use it. Thank again for reading and contributing!
I think the Davis story is about not losing perspective, even though Davis had plenty of reason to fear persecution from the police.
In my second year, a classmate and roommate who I shall call Dude, lost his perspective working on a deadline. Both of us, along with several other classmates put in an all-nighter at school in advance of crits the next morning. I packed it in around 5am, hoping to get a few hours of sleep. Before I left for home, I checked in on Dude; he was cutting a large grid out of thick card stock (this was the mid-eighties and he was riffing on Peter Eisenman). Around 9am, my home phone started ringing off the hook. Several professors were calling me, asking: "Where's Dude?". He wasn't at home and he certainly wasn't at school. The profs assumed the worst, remembering another classmate who had thrown herself in front of a subway train a year earlier. Dude was missing. He eventually reappeared several days later. Distraught by the state of his presentation, he went to the train station and boarded the first train he could find. The train took him north to Montreal where he drowned his sorrows in drink. Meanwhile, the rest of us in studio looked at Dude's project. It looked great (as was typically the case with him). When Dude finally returned, he revealed what had caused him to flip out. Turns out that he constructed his grid at 1:100 instead of 1:50. To the rest of us, the project still looked fabulous. He needed only to have asked another person to keep things in perspective.
My advice? Don't overthink this, there's no magic here, but I'll give one tip; outlines, create an outline of how you want to present, hit your points, and don't take anyone's shit. Ok, two.
I always liked to shape the presentation to focus on where I wanted feedback and asked the jury a few questions to start the conversation. It's more effective earlier in the jury and can help shape all the other critiques (which is great if you want to see the questions addressed in your peers work too, not so great for others if you hijack the entire day).
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