Yeah, it's weird how many architects with socialist tendencies and polemical rants build expensive buildings for elite, super rich clients.

I heard Gehry asks 15-20% in fees, plus a million dollar additional fee to ensure that the man himself is personally involved. Heard this from a large university's facilities director four-five years ago.

i've heard through a second hand source the diller + scofidio charge twenty percent.

and keep in mind the most of the wealth in this country (the us) is in small, privately held businesses (law firms, architecture firms, dentist practices, etc.) despite most of us complaining about our salaries, which are admittedly low, there are some wealthy people in this profession--even non-starchitects

I heard an industry person last year at an aia seminar say gehry charged $500 an hour. don't know how that jives with the percentage fees.

stop trusting these rediculous sources that you're all referring to.

these "star" architects make a lot of money because their businesses have become successful, not because they charge crazy high fees. do you really think gehry has a personal hourly rate?? if he did, $500/hr only works out to around one million per year - he should be making at least that much.

i bet frank gehry makes a lot less money than the ceo's of SOM or HOK, and i bet he works a lot harder too.

$500/ hr doesn't sound too out of line. I know of a couple no-name local architects who charge out rate is $400.00 and I find that too funny because I don't even think of him as a designer more of a wannabe, who runs a sweat shop with a couple good designers and then what looks like a bunch of foreign students doing the grunt work.

"stop trusting these rediculous (sic) sources that you're all referring to."

i can't speak for the others but i'm not trusting anything. i'm just reporting what i heard in response to the question asked.

btw, how do you think starchitect businesses become successful financially? by charging normal rates? i don't think so. as demand for their work goes up, so does their fees. and as far as gehry goes, i imagine he has made a large financial investment in just his software for instance. he's got to charge high fees. in any case, i don't really think $500/hr is out of line, if that is what his bill works out to. a rinkydink lawyer charges $250 an hour.

just to let you know, this discussion was born more out of interest and respect than anthing else.

i'm mostly interested in learning if these architects have created new fee mechanisms that allow them to pursue such high quality work--i.e., how does Piano get the money to build full scale mockups for every project he does. i realize they might make less than the ceo's of som, etc. (I'd be interested in learning how much they make also) due to the amount of overhead, etc. that go into their design work and extra time spent in schematics.

their high income doesn't necessarily come from their (gehry, piano, et al) $400-500/hour fees for their own time, *chitects bill out their employees at high rates as well. When you consider that most of those employees are paid a salary (hopefully) and are working considerable amounts of overtime (that the employees aren't compensated for) the figures start to add up pretty quickly...

Micheal Jackson’s attorney charges $2000 an hour. So Gehry would be an ass to only charge $500 an hour.

What I don't understand is how employees can accept the fact that they are not compensated for overtime. There is no job that doesn't pay overtime. Even Mcdonald’s pays overtime.

hey, some say RK has a 25% commision on design...yet, if you owned a company and wanted a new, rather good building, that made the news and added pubblicity, what would you do?

i say, bring it on!
my landlord told me an Architect charged him 75 dolla p/h to do a planning application drawing...the intern who actually drew them got 15 p/h...think!

but really, do you guys think Architects should (generally) demand higher fees? wouldn't that drive away evene more clients?

Have lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, brokers driven clients away because of a high fee? NO

it probably is more appropriate these days to compare an architect (other than the starchitects) to an engineer in terms of status of profession, ie rather low. what do engineers make?

who is RK?

Pete - There are plenty of professional careers that don't pay overtime - I'm not speaking exclusively of architecture. I don't think its remotely fair (especially when said employee is being billed to the client for their uncompensated overtime) but to say that these jobs do not exist is incorrect. Unless you're really getting into semantics here and mean that even salaried employees are 'paid' for overtime worked - such that their hourly rate of compensation drops with each hour that passes...

no idea...

pete: the professionals you listed have one advantage. what they do is considered to be indispensable (yes, even estate agents).

we have managed to climb the ivory tower, lock ourself inside, and throw away the key, so people think we are, pretty much, useless.

(thank fuck to anyone who ever said Architecture was an art...)

that's why they don't loose clients and quite possibly we would.

you guys have been really good at answering the question.

and by the way, just curious...how much does gensler make on planning a $4.6 bil project?

Javier: sarcasm?

by the way, odb... your question about full-scale mock ups... I think that usually is a seperate item that the client pays for, but a lot of times it's packaged into the contract so that people like Piano make sure it gets done.

no

Richard Ceccanti:

"the professionals you listed have one advantage. what they do is considered to be indispensable (yes, even estate agents)."


All professionals and trades are considered to indispensable. Yes, all accept for architects. The hairdressers, the plumber, the mc-d worker, the truck driver all are able to convince the public that they are indispensable (someone has to fry my burger). I saw the other day a guy on the Oprah show who reorganises your closet. That is his job and he makes more money than the average architect, because he knows (as any other professional) how to make people believe that he is indispensable.

ah, hello, what you bill and what you get paid are not the same.

every architect has contractors do full scale mock ups, even for run of the mill projects, and the contractors get paid for it, not the architects

I think that it's not only people outside the profession that don't give architects the proper respect (at least financially), but that architects themselves don't appreciate their position. The profession of architecture basically has a monopoly on the design of buildings. We've got to use that to our advantage.

Maybe in school there should be a required pro-practice course that deals exclusively with how to manage a profitable firm.

after witnessing some of my colleagues at work i have reached one conclusion: there are too many Architects.

there are people getting through university that have no idea what the fuck they are talking about. they will go on to work, and possibly produce Architecture unworthy of its name, plonking ugly pieces of shit around the globe...

kill a crappy Architecture student today, make the world a better place!

Richard C.....I thought the exact same thing when I was writing my registration exams in a huge gymnasium and looked around and figured there might be potential greatness in about 1% of the people in the room, very surreal moment in the middle of the structures exam.

I figured that's why the world is so ugly just knowing who was going to pass these exams and actually go on to produce Architecture.

There are too many lawyers, doctors, accountance, McDonalds restaurant on a quarter mile strip as well, but they are making money.

serious question-
how much should you make?

i just want to make enough money not to have to worry about money.

If they are making 25% good for them. I doubt it, serously, that they are making that much more than a typical firm of comparable size. Look at Piano and the size of the buildings he's doing! He'd be rich even if he didn't have a name. Look at the scale the stararchitects are working at now - any firm doing that the principle would be rich.

I am just happy that some of them are making it big. It proves for us younger ones (relative, I guess) that good design can pay off, big time. That's big encouragement. 10-15 years ago I wouldn't think any of these guys were rich, at least not super rich. Maybe the world has finally caught up to the idea that good design is indeed a good business decision.

As for Gehry not doing small projects, he's got a large office to support, taking on small projects that take a lot to get done just wouldn't be wise. As the size of your firm increases, you need large projects to sustain the employment.