maybe you should look at where you have worked before and try to supplement your resume... so if your background is only starchitects then maybe you wanna give the corporate world a try... etc.

Well...my advice would be

1) Think about the cities and where you'd rather live. Some people like LA way better, others like SF better.

2) Think about what kind of architecture you want to get experience in doing. Do you want experience becoming very competent in the logistics of large-scale design and construction, or do you want to work on smaller, but more quirky, iconic structures and stay closer to the elite club of starchitects?

SOM will always be around. Decline respectfully. Put in a year at Gehry Partners before he kicks it. It will look good on your resume for the rest of your life. Go back to SOM later and you will be able to ask for more $$$ with Gehry Partners under your belt.

I have had friends and former classmates that have worked for Gehry over the years. This has been their experience:

If you're just out of school or have little experience, you should be prepared to spend most, if not all of your time in the model shop. You probably won't learn much in this position.

Although people love to bash Gehry, the documents that are produced are pretty rigorous from a technical standpoint. The drawing production teams are fairly large and are often split into groups - one group focusing on curtainwall details, one group on masonry, one group one metal skin, etc. When different materials come together, the groups meet to resolve the details. The CAD & Catia standards are pretty rigorous as well. Friends that have worked in this capacity have learned a lot and are now performing CA duties and managing others.

Oh yeah, and expect long hours, but the pay is pretty good if you're in the production, CAD, technical crew...

seriously, why would you want to work for a hack of a corporate firm, when you could work for one of the most influential and controversial masters of our time?

go gehry. nothing at all against som, but really, you're going to probably be doing things technically that they can only dream about getting the chance to do.

plus, you have a much, much higher chance of getting to work on a really good project (ie, really good budget to work with, interesting program, etc.) than som (could be some bland office tower in des moines, iowa). besides, l.a. is my kind of town...

Both have given me good offers to work on technical documentation. SOM is very well known for putting together solid drawings, and Gehry for complex ones, so I'm fine with both ones.

I just thinking more about the experience of being at either of these places. Both have high turnover, I think. But, if I take a job, I want to stay for several years and be promoted. I'm just having a hard time finding out which of these two likes to promote from within, rather than keeping people at basically the level from when they came into the firm....

Thanks everyone for your input. I know this is a pretty selfish thread, but I think many people might also be interested in hearing about either of these firms, because they both have been shrouded in myth and rumors.

the attitude that you want to stay for a while and move upward will take you a long way at som...you may find you've stayed so long, you can't leave...you get institutionalized

btw, som did the structural engineering on bilbao -- gehry and som have worked together quite often, they're not as disparate as they might seem

A gent I work with was on Bilbao for its duration and he brought into work the CD's not too long ago. Amazing set of documents. very well put together. hmm, now that I thnk about it they may be DD... I have nothing else to contribute.

Although I can second the notion that wanting to hang around for at least a few years at SOM can really work out/pay off. I've talked with a few people that have been there a few years and they have all gotten promtions several times over and are now project managers. Its all about what you want to get out of it.

good luck with your decision

Promotions are hard to come by in som actually within design. The reason for the high turn over rates at som is due to their constant efforts in being the uncle scroogie to the lower level employees. I'd say it's a good place to build your foundation in terms of education, but certainly not a place to look for anything exciting. I'm specifically responding to som (sf) as you've requested, it's a little different compared to the som brothers in chicago and ny.

trust me, i know ;)

gehry's moved on to BIM.

i would advise against gehry just because you'd most likely be thrown on their 2 biggest projects right now: grand avenue and brooklyn . 2 monster projects that are imo way out of scale of franks comfort zone. w/ the huge production teams needed for these projects, i wouldn't be expecting any face time with gehry, and your learning will be focused into very narrow areas as mentioned in another post.
pre-these 2 huge projects, i would have said definately gehry, but be very knowledgable about what you may be getting into, and what you really want out of it.

SOM will be an agonizing indoctrination into the purist form of corporate structure and political positioning, but if you excell there, you will learn more about putting a building together than most other places.

i don't think i've sold either firm very well, just trying to be honest.

good luck.

i've also gotten an offer from gehry but decided against it and now work at a small nyc firm. the person that inerviewed me at gehry warned me that there will be lots of modelmaking involved and that "it's part of the process"...even though gehry offerred me a lot more, i'm glad to be working at the small firm in nyc where i have a lot more responsibilities.

Model making is part of the process over at Gehry. By being a model maker, you are not doing the post-design gruntwork. You are designing. It's the guys who are on the computers rather than model making who are doing the post-design gruntwork. It's the opposite of how most firms operate.

the man is a genius. but that's old news.

so taxidriver....where are you going?
did you make the decision yet?

You don't learn much at either but you'll make lifelong contacts from what I hear. I know people who have worked at both and never, in a full year, had an opportunity to work on a drawing. Just did grunt work. Big huge firms are like that.

I did make a decision. It was a tough call, because the comments by archinectors were fairly split. On the whole, those, I took the best of both of them, and decided based on the $ and the name, so I'm going to Gehry in two weeks. I'll let you know if it was a good decision...

so... how is the office?

how much do u get pay taxidriver?

I can't answer salary questions, sorry. Also my old job wouldn't let me go, so I couldn't start at Gehry yet. I'll be starting tomorrow, so in a week or two I'll find out myself...

Ok, I've been working for more than a month now. I think I can report what I've found here at Gehry.

So far, it's like any other place: there's politics, there's good and bad days. The one thing everyone's probably curious about is the model making, because some of you said that model making is the premier activity at the firm, and others said that model making is grunt work. It turns out, you're both right. In some projects, model makers are the boss. In other projects, model makers do grunt work.

So, before accepting a position there, I'd research what project you're getting into.

Other than that, I don't regret being here. The hours are long, but I've heard it's just as bad at SOM.

Grass always looks greener on the other side....

just wanted to add this - i don;'t know anybody at either of those firms, and it's likely that i never will, but that's alright. it's not high on my priority list.

that being said, i like how this thread worked out though. it sure was an enjoyable read and a bit of a vignette into other people's lives.

kudos to those who came here for help, and to those who helped.

and thanks taxidriver for coming back with the final report. like the dude's rug - it really pulled the whole thing together.

come back with another report in a month.