so lately i feel like i am not cut out to be an architect...over the last four months it seems like anything i do in school and at work sucks. The worst part is, I never quite realize 100% exactly how much it sucks until someone tells me. Then I feel like an idiot. The entirety of my work last semester was worthless, really. I often feel like I know exactly what I need to do to make it better, and then when I try to do it I can't seem to see the answer.
Hey you sound like me the truth is no one is ever happy with their own designs........
Just keep looking foward, and never look down...you will be alright.
if someone is giving you criticism on your projects..dont take offense just listento what they say it might be some good constructive advice that will make you a better designer in the long run.
Architecture is a process of learning and experimentation. That is why you have to keep trying and never give up. It’s not really bad when you realized that your design was shitty. At least, you know what you did wasn't good enough, so you need to get better. No one is perfect = No perfect design
I think it's a rare architect who doesn't often feel the way you do.
I heard Rem Koolhaas once speak about how architecture is one of the most paradoxical professions: we come up with megalomaniac dreams at the scale of cities, but then are frozen by our inability to enact those dreams. Too many things get in the way—clients, bureacrat, our own egos or insecurities. He called it a form of "impotence."
Keep in mind that design is subjective. What you design might offend some but be loved by others.
There is, however, the possibility that you are in fact a bad designer. All of us have to face that, figure out whether it's true, then change our lives based on what we discover about ourselves. It requires a lot of honesty and self-awareness.
Louis Kahn had to have felt that way: It was late in life before he realized his first built building. I'm thinking maybe it was why he had a need for so many different women, but that might be a different story.
May 16, 07 7:28 pm ·
·
Louis Kahn was 36 years old when his first (independently designed) building was completed construction. Now altered with pink CMU. Esther Israeli Kahn was probably the most instrumental in getting Kahn independent projects from 1935-1950. Esther was extremely well connected within Philadelphia'a Jewish community.
stop "feeling" like it and know it, then you can move on, and create great things. i know i suck, but i don't think about it and still manage to make things or create ideas that don't suck.
Make sure you archive your hated projects carefully. Don't discard them. In five years time, you will be able to look back more objectively. Sure, you'll see all the flaws, but you also might be pleasantly surprised.
Designing is essentially an introspective process and it is not unusual to be pissed off with the self. Another thing is that you are not supposed to strive for a lifelong satisfaction with your design abilities, that would be stagnating...so you keep challenging yourself.
Wow, crazy, I was just thinking about this tonight. I always go through this phase of self-doubt, but always get past it. I'm afraid one day I won't get past it, but really at the end of the day, there are more important things in life.
renmonk; actually thats a touching admission. there are two mythically extreme possibilities and any number of possibilities in between. i am playing along with the 'you' language :) (dr. phil-ish style)
1- You typically are. In such a case you would need to determine for yourself what is important for you (feeling pathologically disillusioned by your percevied handicaps, the lack of confidence, the unattractiveness of this lack or ...the ability to be clearer with yourself and underline your weaknesses and your strengths, thereby deducing a positive project out of an essentially negative one)
2- You are not. Is your disappointment therefore the outcome of a hyper-senstivity and the burden of an expectation to always be excellent; an excellence which is overt if you will...something that comes with the academic and (less so) the professional context of individuation (the legend of the genius) exponentially underlined by architectural publicity and journalism which usually tackles the favoured architect as an excellent unique subject with that scope of simplicity.
of course, both possibilities also self deconstruct in closer hindsight. i also confess something of the sort; though its also like being a chronically pregnant lady who neither has an idea of when the delivery is due or who the mid-wife is or if she'll ever arrive, godot-style. an alternative and non-related physical analogy: a bloated creative constipation. the lack of skills in being one's own mid-wife/laxative!!!
renmonk are you sure it's not something else in your life that bother you ? Your words indicate that and I second Stourley Kracklite just above, "The greater the artist the greater the doubt." , so if I was you I would think about my other life than designing, look there and when you find something there that bother you try do something about that, and check if that don't change things.
haha i know i must sound depressed...my "outside" life is fine, but there are other things that I KNOW for a fact that I am good at - languages, writing, speaking, science, and those are things at which I improve at a rate commensurate with the amount of effort I put in. With architecture, sometimes I feel like I put in way too much of the wrong kind of effort. Or something. But don't worry, I'm pretty sure this unease is for the most part isolated. thanks for the concern.
agfa8x's point is a good one. i got an A in studio for one of my least favorite projects in grad school. i hated the drawings, i hated the design, and i was sure the professor was just being nice to me because i was outspoken and hardworking in the studio. the funny thing is its a project i think about often. i'm always redesigning it in my head, and i feel like it grows with me as i grow as an architect. it makes me wonder if the professor understood something i didn't at the time.
The trick is to learn how to learn - learn why you like some architects and why other's like them. Once you can learn to learn, you can at least always get better. And that's key.
The problem is when you can't self critque effectively, or, rather, the trick is to learn to critique your own work. Just like the above, once you can do that you'll excel in leaps and bounds.
Took me years to learn this, but once I did I knew which of my designs were very good and which ones sucked. Most importantly, I understand why.
Figuring out how to change your design that sucks is another thing, though. That's the hard part.
Talk to your professor about how you feel. I can look back at school and there was one pivotal class where I just 'got' it. I could then clearly see what was good (in general) and what sucks. Of course, making something good is not as easy.
That professor basically taught us how to learn (with the help of publications like the early 90's Columbia Abstracts - just wonderful books! Not past mid1990, though).
FYI - I don't believe that you will always think your work is not complete or could be better. I think for art things can be more flexible, but buildings are much different - the process is much more conclusive. Just depends on the person, I guess.
Right ,I know that I cirtainly know that, and yes this is how it work for me, but it take so little before renmonk realise where renmonks real qualities are.
remember that what you think is a failure, is really a success story as you now have the experience of what not to do if given the oppertunity to work on a similar project.
sometimes, knowing what not to do, or what not to show is much more powerful than thinking you have the correct answer.
architecture, or life in general is not something you can pick up and immediately be satisfied with. A collection of experiences - good and bad are necessary in order to grow.
having the ability to not make the same "mistakes" again will take you a long way.
Yes , to agrea your weak points and do it loud , often work the opposite way than you would think --- as then others will know you are serious and honest about it, and doing that also allow others to rely more on you, as here are someone who admit something frankly.
when i was in school, i went through 3 years of studio's convinced all my work was shit, no motivation, felt like no talent, but was interested. I had a prof in 4th year who was able to really get me truly interested in design and for him i produced good work. The semester following, i maintained the interest but wasnt terribly happy with my work. The same could be said for both my 5th year semesters.
Now that ive been out of school for a year and working, my interest has remained, and i feel as if the smaller scale, single issue design type work i get to do now has really helped my confidence...
the point is that if you have the interest, which it seems you do... (if you didnt, im guessing you wouldnt even bother asking this question, you would just give it up) the rest will follow. Keep thinking about it, keep working towards it, and remeber that design is not that different from everything else... i mean, how many stupid/shitty ideas do you go through in the rest of your life before you come upon the thing that moves you? my guess is for the honest among us, its a great many.
One very important thing to remember: what's good now will suck in the future and what sucks now will be good in the future.
Jean Cocteau put it this way "Fashion is that which begins life beautiful but turns ugly over time. Art is that which begins life ugly but turns beautiful over time."
Think about how some of those terrible Michael Graves projects were regarded twenty years ago. Lots of people loved them, but now they're seen as awful abombinations. Likewise, people might have hated and misunderstood the current crop of architects twenty years ago, but now they're loved.
Read Elaine Scarry's "On Beauty and Being Just." She talks about how notions of beauty shift over time, even within individuals. Things change. Values chance. Notions of goodness change. Who would have liked hiphop or electronica in 1960?
Just because your professor didn't like what you made now, doesn't mean it won't be awesome ten years from now.
i think maybe what lletdownl is eluding to is inspiration. you have to find what inspires you, then it will make you work harder and the harder you work the more inspired you will become and it will be a neverending cycle ... you will be amazed at what you can produce.
i discovered this myself in school. up until my 5th year i always thought my stuff was decent- but as far as design, i never felt like i had a true purpose- i always tried to make something up to begin designing. ie. i had to design a church for comprehensive studio, so i used a metaphor of trinities: three materials, three forms, you get the picture. it always seemed so shallow to me. basically that architecture had no higher purpose other than what i wanted to make it.
then i found my inspiration, and i see it completely differently. now it doesnt matter if my personal design is good or bad- it isn't about me. there's a larger purpose and a higher inspiration.
i cant remember who said this... "if you can't find inspiration around you, then you aren't looking hard enough"
i always liked that.
i remember spending weeks sketching and re-thinking a term project at school and only coming up with garbage...one day i spent an entire saturday sketching abstract shapes and volumes that would relate to the concept, and become a catalyst to something beautiful...hour after hour, page after page, it was all horrible...all garbage...i remember throwing my sketchbook across the studio in rage, and storming out of the room...(those were the days when the blood would still boil in wrath over design)...went to the library, and spent the rest of the weekend reading and not thinking about the project...in other words...we've all had our downs, especially when you are in school and haven't developed a process of thought you are comfortable with...
and i agree, you learn most from the designs you struggle with...and it's always fun revisiting the projects you felt challenged you the most...
i disagree that it is a myth. look at the number of alcoholics and suicides as it relates to artists and you can't tell me that doubt is not the seed to their destruction...Pollack is one that comes to mind, Basquiat another, Warhol....
pollack was an alki before he ever started painting and basquiat's o.d. would have happened if he'd have been makin espresso. there are probably just as many alcoholic accountants. it s just they arent as sexy as the self destructive artist.
carravaggio on the other hand was a stone cold killa.
May 17, 07 2:51 pm ·
·
Whenever I contemplate suicide it never has anything to do with doubt. What it does have to do with is the certainty of inevitable realities (that I just don't like).
ever feel like you are just a shitty designer
so lately i feel like i am not cut out to be an architect...over the last four months it seems like anything i do in school and at work sucks. The worst part is, I never quite realize 100% exactly how much it sucks until someone tells me. Then I feel like an idiot. The entirety of my work last semester was worthless, really. I often feel like I know exactly what I need to do to make it better, and then when I try to do it I can't seem to see the answer.
anybody ever feel like this...
Story of my life, buddy.
but are you still with it? real question...
Hey you sound like me the truth is no one is ever happy with their own designs........
Just keep looking foward, and never look down...you will be alright.
if someone is giving you criticism on your projects..dont take offense just listento what they say it might be some good constructive advice that will make you a better designer in the long run.
lol sympathy appreciated.
Architecture is a process of learning and experimentation. That is why you have to keep trying and never give up. It’s not really bad when you realized that your design was shitty. At least, you know what you did wasn't good enough, so you need to get better. No one is perfect = No perfect design
I think it's a rare architect who doesn't often feel the way you do.
I heard Rem Koolhaas once speak about how architecture is one of the most paradoxical professions: we come up with megalomaniac dreams at the scale of cities, but then are frozen by our inability to enact those dreams. Too many things get in the way—clients, bureacrat, our own egos or insecurities. He called it a form of "impotence."
Keep in mind that design is subjective. What you design might offend some but be loved by others.
There is, however, the possibility that you are in fact a bad designer. All of us have to face that, figure out whether it's true, then change our lives based on what we discover about ourselves. It requires a lot of honesty and self-awareness.
get well soon
Louis Kahn had to have felt that way: It was late in life before he realized his first built building. I'm thinking maybe it was why he had a need for so many different women, but that might be a different story.
Louis Kahn was 36 years old when his first (independently designed) building was completed construction. Now altered with pink CMU. Esther Israeli Kahn was probably the most instrumental in getting Kahn independent projects from 1935-1950. Esther was extremely well connected within Philadelphia'a Jewish community.
stop "feeling" like it and know it, then you can move on, and create great things. i know i suck, but i don't think about it and still manage to make things or create ideas that don't suck.
i suck too
you should read the Whateverist Manifesto. The issue of quality never rears its ugly head.
i do until i walk by a mediocre building done by a supposed great architect (a disciple of kahn's no less) and it cheers up my day.
hey i like paul rudolph.
story of my past semester.
Make sure you archive your hated projects carefully. Don't discard them. In five years time, you will be able to look back more objectively. Sure, you'll see all the flaws, but you also might be pleasantly surprised.
which one u prefer:
u feel ur shit, but other thinks ur great... then ur a star.
u feel ur great, but other thinks ur shit... then ur nobody.
Designing is essentially an introspective process and it is not unusual to be pissed off with the self. Another thing is that you are not supposed to strive for a lifelong satisfaction with your design abilities, that would be stagnating...so you keep challenging yourself.
I prefer the classic way - I am always great, and no one understands me - but someday they will.
Wow, crazy, I was just thinking about this tonight. I always go through this phase of self-doubt, but always get past it. I'm afraid one day I won't get past it, but really at the end of the day, there are more important things in life.
renmonk; actually thats a touching admission. there are two mythically extreme possibilities and any number of possibilities in between. i am playing along with the 'you' language :) (dr. phil-ish style)
1- You typically are. In such a case you would need to determine for yourself what is important for you (feeling pathologically disillusioned by your percevied handicaps, the lack of confidence, the unattractiveness of this lack or ...the ability to be clearer with yourself and underline your weaknesses and your strengths, thereby deducing a positive project out of an essentially negative one)
2- You are not. Is your disappointment therefore the outcome of a hyper-senstivity and the burden of an expectation to always be excellent; an excellence which is overt if you will...something that comes with the academic and (less so) the professional context of individuation (the legend of the genius) exponentially underlined by architectural publicity and journalism which usually tackles the favoured architect as an excellent unique subject with that scope of simplicity.
of course, both possibilities also self deconstruct in closer hindsight. i also confess something of the sort; though its also like being a chronically pregnant lady who neither has an idea of when the delivery is due or who the mid-wife is or if she'll ever arrive, godot-style. an alternative and non-related physical analogy: a bloated creative constipation. the lack of skills in being one's own mid-wife/laxative!!!
zenmonk, it happens in college , dont lose your hair over it.
keep on working on develop your arch/creative skills as a whole rather than just worrying about design of one semester or one academic year
Not to worry... it's a sure sign of better things to come!
you guys are sweet...i guess i have a long way to go/stuff to figure out. I like the pregnancy/laxative metaphor, by the way. :)
@ noctilucent,
are you an ex-shrink turned architect ?
i posted this on my favorite quote thread:
The greater the artist the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is a consolation prize to those less talented.
I like that.
renmonk are you sure it's not something else in your life that bother you ? Your words indicate that and I second Stourley Kracklite just above, "The greater the artist the greater the doubt." , so if I was you I would think about my other life than designing, look there and when you find something there that bother you try do something about that, and check if that don't change things.
haha i know i must sound depressed...my "outside" life is fine, but there are other things that I KNOW for a fact that I am good at - languages, writing, speaking, science, and those are things at which I improve at a rate commensurate with the amount of effort I put in. With architecture, sometimes I feel like I put in way too much of the wrong kind of effort. Or something. But don't worry, I'm pretty sure this unease is for the most part isolated. thanks for the concern.
Vindy...not one spelling mistake in your previous post ! I'm impressed
agfa8x's point is a good one. i got an A in studio for one of my least favorite projects in grad school. i hated the drawings, i hated the design, and i was sure the professor was just being nice to me because i was outspoken and hardworking in the studio. the funny thing is its a project i think about often. i'm always redesigning it in my head, and i feel like it grows with me as i grow as an architect. it makes me wonder if the professor understood something i didn't at the time.
i think that is the first ever post from vind/per that i've actually totally understood...
do we have an impostor?
The trick is to learn how to learn - learn why you like some architects and why other's like them. Once you can learn to learn, you can at least always get better. And that's key.
The problem is when you can't self critque effectively, or, rather, the trick is to learn to critique your own work. Just like the above, once you can do that you'll excel in leaps and bounds.
Took me years to learn this, but once I did I knew which of my designs were very good and which ones sucked. Most importantly, I understand why.
Figuring out how to change your design that sucks is another thing, though. That's the hard part.
Talk to your professor about how you feel. I can look back at school and there was one pivotal class where I just 'got' it. I could then clearly see what was good (in general) and what sucks. Of course, making something good is not as easy.
That professor basically taught us how to learn (with the help of publications like the early 90's Columbia Abstracts - just wonderful books! Not past mid1990, though).
FYI - I don't believe that you will always think your work is not complete or could be better. I think for art things can be more flexible, but buildings are much different - the process is much more conclusive. Just depends on the person, I guess.
the belief that the great artist is a great doubter is a myth.
Right ,I know that I cirtainly know that, and yes this is how it work for me, but it take so little before renmonk realise where renmonks real qualities are.
remember that what you think is a failure, is really a success story as you now have the experience of what not to do if given the oppertunity to work on a similar project.
sometimes, knowing what not to do, or what not to show is much more powerful than thinking you have the correct answer.
architecture, or life in general is not something you can pick up and immediately be satisfied with. A collection of experiences - good and bad are necessary in order to grow.
having the ability to not make the same "mistakes" again will take you a long way.
Yes , to agrea your weak points and do it loud , often work the opposite way than you would think --- as then others will know you are serious and honest about it, and doing that also allow others to rely more on you, as here are someone who admit something frankly.
all im gonna say is this: You learn twice as much from your failures as you do from your successes.
Luckily, life is full of failures.
renmonk-
when i was in school, i went through 3 years of studio's convinced all my work was shit, no motivation, felt like no talent, but was interested. I had a prof in 4th year who was able to really get me truly interested in design and for him i produced good work. The semester following, i maintained the interest but wasnt terribly happy with my work. The same could be said for both my 5th year semesters.
Now that ive been out of school for a year and working, my interest has remained, and i feel as if the smaller scale, single issue design type work i get to do now has really helped my confidence...
the point is that if you have the interest, which it seems you do... (if you didnt, im guessing you wouldnt even bother asking this question, you would just give it up) the rest will follow. Keep thinking about it, keep working towards it, and remeber that design is not that different from everything else... i mean, how many stupid/shitty ideas do you go through in the rest of your life before you come upon the thing that moves you? my guess is for the honest among us, its a great many.
One very important thing to remember: what's good now will suck in the future and what sucks now will be good in the future.
Jean Cocteau put it this way "Fashion is that which begins life beautiful but turns ugly over time. Art is that which begins life ugly but turns beautiful over time."
Think about how some of those terrible Michael Graves projects were regarded twenty years ago. Lots of people loved them, but now they're seen as awful abombinations. Likewise, people might have hated and misunderstood the current crop of architects twenty years ago, but now they're loved.
Read Elaine Scarry's "On Beauty and Being Just." She talks about how notions of beauty shift over time, even within individuals. Things change. Values chance. Notions of goodness change. Who would have liked hiphop or electronica in 1960?
Just because your professor didn't like what you made now, doesn't mean it won't be awesome ten years from now.
i think maybe what lletdownl is eluding to is inspiration. you have to find what inspires you, then it will make you work harder and the harder you work the more inspired you will become and it will be a neverending cycle ... you will be amazed at what you can produce.
i discovered this myself in school. up until my 5th year i always thought my stuff was decent- but as far as design, i never felt like i had a true purpose- i always tried to make something up to begin designing. ie. i had to design a church for comprehensive studio, so i used a metaphor of trinities: three materials, three forms, you get the picture. it always seemed so shallow to me. basically that architecture had no higher purpose other than what i wanted to make it.
then i found my inspiration, and i see it completely differently. now it doesnt matter if my personal design is good or bad- it isn't about me. there's a larger purpose and a higher inspiration.
i cant remember who said this... "if you can't find inspiration around you, then you aren't looking hard enough"
i always liked that.
Anyone who watches Project Runway will know the following quote:
"One day you're in, the next day you're out."
'ever feel like a shitty designer'....
sure. 20 minutes ago. maybe 45 minutes from now. definitely by 11:30am tomorrow.
"Andre, where's Andre....make it work."
i remember spending weeks sketching and re-thinking a term project at school and only coming up with garbage...one day i spent an entire saturday sketching abstract shapes and volumes that would relate to the concept, and become a catalyst to something beautiful...hour after hour, page after page, it was all horrible...all garbage...i remember throwing my sketchbook across the studio in rage, and storming out of the room...(those were the days when the blood would still boil in wrath over design)...went to the library, and spent the rest of the weekend reading and not thinking about the project...in other words...we've all had our downs, especially when you are in school and haven't developed a process of thought you are comfortable with...
and i agree, you learn most from the designs you struggle with...and it's always fun revisiting the projects you felt challenged you the most...
i disagree that it is a myth. look at the number of alcoholics and suicides as it relates to artists and you can't tell me that doubt is not the seed to their destruction...Pollack is one that comes to mind, Basquiat another, Warhol....
pollack was an alki before he ever started painting and basquiat's o.d. would have happened if he'd have been makin espresso. there are probably just as many alcoholic accountants. it s just they arent as sexy as the self destructive artist.
Chatterton suicid
Hannibal suicid
Dmosthne suicid
Nietzsche
Fou lier
Quant moi...
Quant moi
a ne va plus trs bien
Chatterton suicid
Cloptre suicid
Isocrate suicid
Goya
Fou lier
Quant moi...
Quant moi
a ne va plus trs bien
Chatterton suicid
Marc-Antoine suicid
Van Gogh suicid
Schumann
Fou lier
Quant moi...
Quant moi
a ne va plus trs bien
carravaggio on the other hand was a stone cold killa.
Whenever I contemplate suicide it never has anything to do with doubt. What it does have to do with is the certainty of inevitable realities (that I just don't like).
should we call someone?
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