about 500 euros a month

and who says architecture favors the rich... ?

are you serious raji, that is less than in US, what can you do with that money,

Everyone makes more in US with less experience and no master

500 €? no way! that's like a student's salary in their first job in an arch firm ever, when you're at your third or fourth year in school and still learning what an executive project is all about... around 5 or 6 € per hour (working part time, 20 hours a week > 400-480 €/month)

I'd say that having 2 yrs experience and a MArch (and assuming you have a good portfolio -not necessarily brilliant-, good CAD skills and some spanish/catalan knowledge), in a conventional mid-sized firm you would make from 8 to 14 €/hour approx (11-13 only if you are really lucky).. doing 8 hrs/day (the minimum), that's from 1280€ to 2080€/month..

do some extra hours and you can reach 1800 €/month with a standard salary of 10€/hr..

raji,
salaries in spain are bad but not that bad. let's say you can earn anywhere between 700 and 1300 euros.
You don't get over 1500 unless you have had at least 5 years of experience.
Of course there is always an architect out there willing to give you the job for no salary, but i have heard of such cases in all countries, and that is unacceptable.

i disagree with you, a good friend of mine, who graduated from the ETSAM 3 yeras ago, started making 500 euros a month, and only now makes 1300, that's enough to live, plus a little bit more.

1300 €/month after 3 years working full-time in an arch office in Barcelona its like the minimum you'll make, really.. that's barely more than 8€/hour if you do a normal 9.00h-14.00h + 15.00h-18.00h job routine (probably in large offices, because in small offices you'll do at least 9 hours/day)..

I don't know the standards in Madrid but in BCN you can find a 1500 €/month (9€/hr, 8hr/day) job pretty easily if you don't accept just the first job in the list (and make clear in the interview/first contact that you want to be paid for every single hour you'll spend at the office)

but a licensed architect, freshly out of school, will NEVER do less than 1000€/month (working full-time) by any means.. and never heard of anyone offering jobs without a salary here.. I mean, what's the point of accepting a job if you're not paid? That sounds ridiculous...

that gives me an idea. I have been several times to Madrid, but I have never lived there, so the question is. is that salary enough to live well? how much could you expect to pay for a shared place? can you save?

from my experience, i would say Medit is pretty accurate for the bigger cities that were mentioned (Madrid, Barcelona) but perhaps the starting pay may be a bit less in smaller cities where the cost of living is a bit less, thinking 1000 to 1200 euro/mo.

i think that for both cases it's enough to get by, because rent for a shared flat rarely exceeds 400 euro/mo. in sevilla i rented a decent flat for 150 euro/mo, and have friends who have their own places for under 400 euro. in madrid and barcelona you should expect the rent to be higher, but i think that you can still save.

how difficult is it to get a job with a degree from a US school?

anyone have a personal list of kickass firms in Barcelona?

If I let an outsider read this thread, they will not be able to figure out what profession this subject is based on. NO normal college degree profession earns that little. No blue collar profession earns that little. And if you have a bad paying job, but work long hours, you'll still be able to earn a decent living. As a matter of fact, on occasions you may fins a job that will let you work a double shift once in a while, but no normal jobs exceeds more than 10 hours straight. If you are so keen on earning so little, you might as well not work. Become a shoe salesman, work part time and play with your Maya and make blob in your free time.

Either this forum only consists of daydreamers wanting to work for a starhitect for free and masturbate on their books, or there is something terribly wrong with this profession.

I've heard that Barcelona is getting more and more parochial and Catalan is the main language now (any Spaniards want to comment on that?) Also, a friend of mine had to come back to the UK from being there for a couple of years, cos her & her architect husband simply could not make ends meet. Everyone wants to work there, cos it's such a great city.

Once I get qualified, I'm seriously considering going to Madrid for a year or so, just for the experience and polishing up my Spanish. And to meet Posh & Becks. One of the great things about architecture is that it's pretty portable, if you forget about minor things like building codes and the legal stuff ;)

Harold - you're so right. What's wrong with this profession?
Being a qualified architect is worth nothing in the construction industry, but outside of it, they still seem to respect it and pay your worth for some reason.
Strange.

gee... catalan has always been the main language in Barcelona and Catalonia unless you come up with a spanish absolutist king (like Philip V in the 18th ct.) or a 20th ct. fascist spanish dictator (like Primo de Rivera, in the 1920's, or general Franco in the 1930's) who would forbid the catalan language... actually, the fact that we're getting ..er.. "parochial" about this issue is just a matter of pure survival

see.. to understand what we are doing, what we are speaking and where the hell we are going you have to learn first where we come from.

this is a rather simple (not simplistic) definition of what is Catalonia and it comes from no less than one of America's all-time architect heroes: mr Bruce J. Graham ... still, what he says -assuming, maybe wrongly, that his knowledge about catalan history is rather small- is just an unquestionable truth: Catalans, we are a different "thing" than spaniards -- always been and still are.. our only common ground is where we are: the european continent, and that both spanish and catalan come from latin and the roman empire.. the rest's just bullshit, politics and wars:

"-Blum: For the Barcelona project, you spoke Spanish. Does Frank Gehry speak Spanish?
-Graham: No, he doesn't speak a word of it. He actually comes from the East, not from California.

-Blum: Were you his spokesman in a way, when it came to presenting things, or did he bring his own translator?
-Graham: I was there most of the time. Most of the Spanish people spoke English. [not really, mr. Graham]. Certainly the mayor spoke fluent English.

-Blum: Everything was conducted in English?
-Graham: No, not everything. When Frank was there, we spoke English. If I was there with the mayor, we spoke Spanish. One thing that happened to me a lot was that we would start in Spanish and then they would quickly start moving into Catalan, which is a separate language. I don't know Catalán.

-Blum: Is it just a different dialect?
-Graham: It's a different language and a different vocabulary. Some words are similar, but by and large, it's a different language. The pronunciation is also quite different. There are people who settled in that part of Spain that were very different [er... we were already here even before the romans came and called this land Hispania, mr. Graham]. That's why the people of Catalán [he means, Catalonia] have always wanted to be separate from Spain."

from: http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/caohp/graham.pdf
(I've reading this long 333 pages interview about Graham and the secrets of SOM -including his work in Barcelona: the Arts Hotel- .. a pretty interesting document.. didn't know that Owings was the puppet master)

and just yesterday, 300,000+ catalans took the streets to say exactly what Graham said: we are a different community, a different nation: a proudly multicultural, multilingual, multireligious nation, but a different nation than Spain nonetheless..:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/pictures/GNG02.htm

I lived in Barcelona for 3 months last year. I think I got lucky but I was making 12 euros an hour and then the employer was taking out 2 for taxes so I was taking home 10 euros an hour. I have 5 years experience but no degree.