i think i read somewhere that the average european start their own firm about 3 months after graduation...typically wins a competition shortly after that & gains some nice publicity...then it's fade to oblivion before moving abroad to leverage early buzz into teaching fellowship

it's a pretty good life

ah,,, my dream,, im late though, been 5 months already,, wheres that comptetition??

that's the catch...nobody knows what happens to those young euros who don't win competition

u see them around doing a lot of public funded work and enjoying cafe's in nice squares, and comuting in a bike to the studio (not the office) every day rather than in a car ;) it is a pretty good life after all

nothing extraordinary... we do what you do, no more nor less... Cad monkeying, maybe doin' small things here and there...

forget this sort of 'archi-European dream', the path described by puddles in message #2 is just for a minority, really.

I have rather a number of friends and acquaintances falling into the category described by Puddles in that second post. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. It's not so much that I'm a late developer, more that I'm just completely out-of-synch with reality :-)

What is the relationship between getting respect and having enough clients to start your own practice?

ha...there's pretty much zero relationship between getting "respect" and having enough clients to start your own practice.

^ I don't think they have any direct relationship... having enough clients is just for people well-connected (and the connections better have some money in their pockets, so, again, it's a privilege for a minority)
and getting respect depends only on your capacity of convincing the client that architecture is more than construction, that there are some added values that need to be taken in consideration and that one of this aspects is the 'mere' plasticity of a built object, so that your work needs to be respected as much as the codes or the client's budget... in the end you have to know how to convince people... an Obama sort of thing maybe... and, again, and because not everybody has enough good rethoric, some are not successful in gettin' some respect for their work - even if it's good architecture
and for the public client -the administration- you just have to have some luck in the beginning -I know some people that have tried and tried, and even if their work is pretty good never got the chance to win a comp for a small public school, a sanitary center or similar equipments that the local administration puts on the public board- ... and then, for the bigger projects, you just need a good CV to simply get in, and then a good name to win - so, one more time, it's always a minority

I think it might be important to point out here the huge difference between the European licensing versus the American licensing. For most EU countries, at least until recently (it has changed in France for instance that you have to work for 1 year afterwards) once you graduate you are considered an architect. As we all know in the states the average time it takes is something like 5 years at best with IDP and exams to become an official architect, not to mention the costs involved. The experience part is way more integrated in EU architecture schooling.

by the sound of it some people really hope they pluck candy floss from the sky, time to take your meds.

in Germany folks ain't considered architects after graduating, but engineers - got to work for two years afterwards going through *all* project phases before becoming licensed.

Yeah, sorry i should amend that to shortly after graduation, as compared to the US, like I said where it takes much longer than 2 years.

in NL you can immediately register after graduating, no experience needed. i guess the question is - does dutch architecture suffer because of this very loose system....mmmm errrr. no.

is it still 3 years for Hamburg and Bavaria?

not sure, holz.. but it wouldn't surprise me for those individual..err.. nations to differ from the rest of the country. ;}