I have gotten an internship offer here--can someone please tell me how large the firm is? What the firm is known for (not buildings or projects, but details of how the firm is run, what they focus on etc)? I have to decide whether to accept very soon and I have never been in to see the firm. Thanks
robust84
Dec 29, 06 12:16 am
are they in new york or berlin now? also, you should go visit or something before deciding. even though libeskind isn't the newest awesomest trend on the block anymore working for a starchitect like him could be very rewarding. i'd do it if possible - altough i know nothing about the firm's size or working conditions. do you have any other really good internship options? if it's between libeskind and say, HOK or SOM, do libeskind, no second thoughts. if it's between libeskind and DSR or HdM or Behnisch or Himmelblau or something, that's a different story.
d-t
Dec 29, 06 4:07 am
SLA is 40-50 people as I remembered from previous visit.
Becker
Dec 29, 06 4:19 am
they have lots of different departments, one is just doing competitions and jets around the world doing them. did you ask any questions when you were given the offer? write them an email... i am sure they know more than anyone. ;)
c04
Dec 29, 06 2:06 pm
thanks...it is his new york office. other potentials im waiting to here on are robert sterns firm and cesar pellis. libeskind seems most interesting however...
punky_brewster
Dec 29, 06 8:07 pm
...so the choices are stern, pelli, and....libeskind? that's quite a difference huh?
if you can afford it, danny is much more fun to work with than the other 2 old farts you will probably never see or interact with.
c04
Dec 29, 06 8:52 pm
haah yeah afford it is the main factor...libeskind pays next to nothing if im attempting to live in ny
robust84
Dec 29, 06 11:37 pm
what does he pay?
pourstone
Dec 30, 06 12:10 am
she pays $1500. (nina, his wife, runs the whole show) That's pretty much next to nothing considering ny living expenses. I heard they expanded the office a year ago, or thereabouts and must be employing roughly 50 people. Interns usually do the typical stuff at his firm: build models, do 3D, maybe a little CAD, and anything to build his ego.
robust84
Dec 30, 06 12:43 am
$1500 per month? yeah that would bea little tight living in new york. better go share a place with some friends out in brooklyn. maybe it's worth going into a little bit of debt if it's a short internship
holz.box
Dec 30, 06 1:01 am
$1500? that's almost 4 times what you'll earn @ OMA (depending on how weak the euro is)
what a deal!
Sean Taylor
Dec 30, 06 1:05 am
As an employer I would just add that. . .
A short stay at any firm, starchinect or not, would not mean anything to me. If an applicant worked at my favorite firm for less than a year or so, it would not add any credibility to me as an employer. I personally passed on an offer to work for Morphosis for free after grad school and am glad that I did.
c04
Dec 30, 06 1:20 am
Many people do not have the option of staying longer than a summer internship. I feel like having a 'starchitect' or two on your resume before graduating from school (im talking undergrad non-architecture school here, but i would guess it would be similar for masters programs or graduate arch schools as well) can lend a hand to both impressing upon future employers and grad school admissions even if nothing but to give a second look at what this applicant/future employee has to offer.
If a short stay is your only feasible option at this point, wouldn't it be more helpful to be taken under the wings of a well known firm as opposed to a lesser noted one?
Because I have certainly come to find that many impressive firms look more strongly at applicants who have had experience at firms equal in status (it increases their hirability). I mean it seems to make sense--reviewing an application of an intern that was able to work for a very good firm takes away a large portion of the liability that this person is inept at such things as important computer programs or model-making skills. So maybe it won't help for some future positions, but if this person shows strong promise in addition to their past work as summer interns at notable firms, it certainly cannot hurt, right?
robust84
Dec 30, 06 1:37 am
why do all these cool architects like morphosis, eisenman, oma, etc all pay so poorly? that's seriously stupid.
Chch
Dec 30, 06 7:56 am
casct84 - I agree. I've worked for some starchitects myself during my undergrad stages and I think that, at that stage, it's good to expose yourself to successful design based firms.
Sure, you need 'real world' experience, and working for the starchitects will only give you quite limited responsibility, but I think that can be fixed at grad school level, once you've had a chance to nurture your design skills.
...and it's true what you say - starchitect firms like to stick to their own. There seems increasingly to be two tiers of workers - the starchitecters and the 'normals' - who don't ever really seem to cross onto each other's paths. (when I say 'tier' I am not suggesting any differerence in ability here, btw)
vado retro
Dec 30, 06 11:33 am
successful design based firms pay so poorly because that is the only way to fuel the "successful design". the many study models, charrettes, endless design possibilities and solutions and reworks and do overs can only be done with low or unpaid labor of idealistic and passionate youth. for those who think wearing an architecture sucks shirt and flip flops to work is a perk and are willing to work 16 hours a day i say rock on. but none of this work is billable beyond a point and really only serves the starchitects marketing efforts. successful design does not mean successful business. don't get the two confused.
some person
Dec 30, 06 1:11 pm
vado: that is a truly insightful perspective I had never considered in exactly that way before.
A project manager I used to work for (he was very production-oriented) always said that he could schedule/scope the amount of time for DD's and CD's, but "design time" was always an unknown.
Which begs the question: is good design the result of "many study models, charrettes, endless design possibilities and solutions and reworks?" (Maybe it's time for me to brush up on my firm-type-matrix that shows the difference between service-oriented firms and design-oriented firms... hrm...where did I put that chart?)
um..sorry...what was the topic of this thread? Ah yes.. casct04, consider yourself lucky for landing a job offer from a firm that you know very little about. You must have exceptional design skills that transcend your lack of knowledge about the firm. Congratulations.
robust84
Dec 30, 06 6:10 pm
maybe you should work for frankie gehry. i guess he's the only starchitect who pays!!
------
Most architects of Mr. Gehry's stature can staff the lower rungs of their office with volunteers and interns. "I am very proud," he says and sits up at the conference table. "Everybody gets paid. Everybody here is paid. There's no freebie interns. I've never done that. A lot of my colleagues do that, but that offends me so I've never done that." Like only one or two other topics in our conversation, this issue of how he cares for the people who work for him is something that seems to get him excited. "I am very proud," he says, again referring to his employees, "that they always get cost of living index raises and bonuses and more."
--------- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009430
myriam
Dec 30, 06 6:15 pm
i wonder if any starchitects of today ever worked for the starchitects of yesterday... something tells me no.
it seems to me that if you truly want to learn how to be a good designer, working in a starchitects office is not the way to do it.
if you just want to work in a starchitect's office, well then by all means go enjoy yourself! live the nyc life, supposedly everyone should do it once, right?
i am always curious as to why one would value oneself so little as to work for free for a firm in which they are doing the same activities with the same paucity of principle face-time as they would be in any other, say, corporate firm where they would be paid for their time at least. if you're just going to build models either way...
james webb
Dec 30, 06 6:30 pm
there was a thread sometime ago about current (new) famous architects who had worked at OMA - and its a very long list.
robust84
Dec 30, 06 7:14 pm
i think it's a very different design culture at a high-design starchitect's office. even if you're just building models there (as you said, myriam, same as at a corporate office...) you're building models really good stuff and you're soaking in the design skills and abilities and principles that make starchitects great. you're also making contacts with really talented, ambitious people who may help you become your own starchitect one day. what you said is like saying, why go to princeton over university of alaska, when you're just building models and reading about theory and drawing stuff and learning computer skills either way. it's the same basic skills but there's a world of difference in how you will intellectually develop while doing it and a world of difference in the person you will become when you're through.
holz.box
Dec 30, 06 8:52 pm
"i wonder if any starchitects of today ever worked for the starchitects of yesterday... something tells me no."
it certainly doesn't hurt ...
mies, gropius and corb all worked for peter behrens
kleindDytham, makoto Yokomizo & Kazuyo Sejima worked for Ito
botta worked briefly w/ corb
venturi worked for kahn
suoto de moura and peter boyd worked for siza
dermot cody worked for pawson
valentin beath worked for zumthor
rick joy worked for will bruder
annette gigon worked for herzog + de meuron
BIG, JDS, REX, work, zaha, FOA, mvrdv, studio gang, xavier de geyter, neutelings, mike guyer, mathias sauerbruch worked @ OMA
tod williams worked for meier
and i think shigeru worked for ando, but i might be wrong...
robust is dead on, it the ideas and principles that the intern is exposed to that differ from a "normal" firm.
will galloway
Dec 30, 06 11:21 pm
but that doesn't resolve the lack of pay thing.
totally sucks. gehry has the correct take on that. my design/business partner worked for a starchitect (a pritzker winner even) here in tokyo and was paid a living wage as an intern; i think this is cuz the starchitect in question is a gentleman, and of a slightly older generation than ito/sejima, etc.
i know people who work killing hours for starchitects, and also know a few who have burned out after the constant need to make meetings at 3am, etc. which is stunningly absurd. i guess it pays for the starchitects, but is at the very least bad kharma if not a waste of resources...
vado has a point about the economics of starchitecture. look at the sheer number of models that oma produces for any project. they are innumerable, and i think a big part of why they are able to stay on their game. how to do the same while paying staff properly is a big question...
as far as the original post goes, i imagine working for liebeskind would be interesting and worthwhile for a bit, for reasons presented by many above...on other hand, i am quite impressed with pelli's son's work with sustainable tech...design quality not so high, mind, which is a pity.
myriam
Dec 31, 06 12:06 am
tod wiliams worked for meier? interesting, i wouldn't have guessed that in a million years. i forgot about sejima, i knew that...
meh, you make a good point in a way, robust. guess it's to each his own. i'd rather have more responsibility at a smaller office than be a cog in anyone's wheel, i guess. i am still young and green however, i'm sure my attitude will change a million times over.
i do still wonder, however, how many actual ideas you actually get exposed to in as an unpaid monkeyboy in a large firm, no matter how famous. to me the analogy is closer to something like, why go to X school whose program only consists of paper architecture when you could go to Y school and learn paper architecture, building, enviro systems, etc etc? one choice simply offers more experience than the other, to me. and i'm not truly convinced that the quality of "discussion" that goes on at a starchitects office is truly quantifiably "better" than the discussion going on at many other firms. Guess it's personal choice.
will galloway
Dec 31, 06 2:28 am
i would be very surprised if the quality of experience and the motivation of the staff was not, on average, higher in a starchitect office. if the office is run like oma, or even ito's shop then you are only a cog if you want to be, as it is a ripe atmosphere for people with something to say and do to step up to the plate. big corporate firms i somehow doubt that is the case (it isn't so in the case of my ol classmates who went that route anyway).
why do you think, myriam, that ito (as an example, just cuz i know him best) doesn't know about the tech stuff you listed, nor that his staff don't deal with it? have you ever seen his buildings? they are incredibly complex at times, and structurally very innovative. model makers and junior grunts working on say the opera in taiwan are gonna learn some very interesting things about all of those things you assume starchitects don't deal with. they will in fact learn more, cuz they hae to understand the standard system very well in order to get it to stand up and roll over the way the architecture requires. they may be unfamiliar with 2x4 construction, but i would bet they would have a god understanding of structure and how it is used to deal with all kindsa forces...
similarly, with an office like maki, for instance, the attention to detailing as a part of system is much more developed than anything a corporate firm would bother with. not saying its better, but i suspect the education on that score is much higher at Maki than at SOM, even for a model builder, cuz that is where the details are worked out more often than not. i imagine it is much the same for stevie holl's place...
about the level of discourse being higher or not, well alejandro zaero paolo may not have learned all he knows at oma, ditto with winy mass, and similar, but they were at OMA cuz oma attracts the best and brightest. THAT is an amazing company to be thrown into, especially as an intern. even if not everyone is brilliant your chances of meeting and working with young supersmart people is quite good. which is why i would also recommend the ivies if you can get into them. the company you are in, school, or office, makes a very big difference to the work you do. environment is super important for creative education. i mean why do you think ito and rem have set their offices up to be filled with so many bright young people?
remuneration on the other hand...totally sucks. i think that is where the personal choice thang comes in. you know, the one where you decide whether all those cool things are worth the lack of a reasonable life for the duration of the experience or not...
robust84
Dec 31, 06 11:07 am
well, i think as we grow up and become the next generation of starchitects, we need to change things and actually pay our interns. although architecture is very much an art, we need to really also start seeing it as a business too...work efficiently enough and charge the client enough that we can afford to live comfortably and pay all staff comfortably. there's no reason that, for example, as project architect in a medium size firm i should be making less money than a vice president in a medium sized business. it's time for architects to band together and start making money comparable to our intelligence and the amount of education we've got!
auvn
Dec 31, 06 11:38 am
Starchitect firms might do more research, build more models, and do more design work than normal firms. However, design fees that starchitects firms charge client might be 2-3 times higher than fees normal firms would charge. So reallistically speaking, starchitect firms can't pay or don't want to pay their employees as high as normal firm would do.
Maybe working experience in starchitect offices are counted as studying without paying tuitions so their employees are willing to work for no-good pay. Besides, later on that period might help for marketing pursposes... So as long as mutual benefits exist, people will still happy. And .......an old story going oni
How long does young talent architects often stay with starchitects before they spin off?
some person
Dec 31, 06 11:57 am
To follow-up on auvn's question: What is the difference in tenure-before-spin-off for young architects working in starchitects' versus non-starchitects' offices? Further, are young architects working in starchitects' offices more likely to spin-off faster because they gained more design knowledge quicker than their non-starchitect counterparts? Or is a young architect in a non-starchitect office more likely to spin-off faster because he/she received a more well-rounded internship that included things like business development, project management, and face-to-face client skills?
Janosh
Dec 31, 06 12:22 pm
Starchitects certainly design more. But I don't think you are going to learn how to design by working at one of those firms. I mean really - how many people that you went to school with "learned how to design" during all those studio classes when they were getting one on one instruction.
What you will learn is how to present ideas in the manner most currently accepted by the academy, you will make friends with like-minded folks, and you will learn a little bit about swagger, which is the single largest contributor (after having rich friends) to your success as a future practitioner. No matter how talented you are as a designer, you won't be successful as a spinoff until you can get rich clients on your own and convince them to build your shit.
As far the firm's economics go, firms do make money on design. Not many, but those that do market themselves as designers, and as Auvn sez, the increased fees pay for all those models. This how my current firm works, but to Vado's point, we couldn't do it without cheap intern labor to crank the shit out. From a firm management perspective, it can be done by paying your interns a living wage, but unless you are more humanist than most big name/ego architects, why would you? Lower wages means more people to do the work.
Casct04, if you are still a youth and don't need the money, I would go for it - your opportunities to take low paying jobs for cool folks will decrease dramatically as you get older. And if you go straight to HOK now you may regret the lost opportunity later. But keep this in mind:
If you are working 40 hours a week (ha!) and have a $1500 Salary/Stipend, you will be making about $9.30 an hour probably without health insurance. They will (and this is a legal gray area) treat you as a salaried, professionally exempt employee, so you won't be getting any overtime. And if they do it the same way Danny did when he was at Cranbrook (and he may have grown up since then), you will be treated as an independent contractor, so you will be responsible for paying self employment tax and the portion of Social Security that the employer is normally obligated to pay.
thexm
Dec 31, 06 5:21 pm
i am just curious which stararchitects pay to interns.....
j-turn
Jan 2, 07 7:06 am
I don't know why DCA thinks you don't get "more well-rounded internship that included things like business development, project management, and face-to-face client skills" at a starchitects office? Do you know this for fact, or is that just what you tell yourself?
It's about practice size not stature. If you work at a small office you'll get broader exposure, but the trade off is you probably work on small projects. in a big office you get more pigeon holed, but you get to work on bigger projects.
If you work for a starchitect, you'll be on a project that is more likely to be published and have a high profile.
also - to holz.box - don't forget about all of peter eisenman's kids (scott cohen, greg lynn, thomas leeser) and Diller and Scofidio (l.t.l, n archtects ...), ARO were steven holl's project architects. Oh and my favorite: Moneo worked on the sydney opera house for Utzon.
some person
Jan 2, 07 8:49 pm
j-turn, you'll note that my speculations were phrased in the form of questions. I do not have first-hand knowledge about the working environment in the office of a starchitect. However, many of the testimonials here lead me to believe that a greater percentage of the staff in a starchitect's office is dedicated solely to modelmaking.
Also, I do not necessarily agree with your thoughts about firm size. In fact, I learned the most about business development and firm management during my years at a large (120-person) firm.
nalenjery
May 25, 17 12:04 pm
How can anyone get a chance at Studio Libeskind? I'm assuming they hire through in-house referrals like all the other big name firms.
bowling_ball
May 25, 17 11:31 pm
This must be a record for the oldest thread revival. More than 10 years!
I have gotten an internship offer here--can someone please tell me how large the firm is? What the firm is known for (not buildings or projects, but details of how the firm is run, what they focus on etc)? I have to decide whether to accept very soon and I have never been in to see the firm. Thanks
are they in new york or berlin now? also, you should go visit or something before deciding. even though libeskind isn't the newest awesomest trend on the block anymore working for a starchitect like him could be very rewarding. i'd do it if possible - altough i know nothing about the firm's size or working conditions. do you have any other really good internship options? if it's between libeskind and say, HOK or SOM, do libeskind, no second thoughts. if it's between libeskind and DSR or HdM or Behnisch or Himmelblau or something, that's a different story.
SLA is 40-50 people as I remembered from previous visit.
they have lots of different departments, one is just doing competitions and jets around the world doing them. did you ask any questions when you were given the offer? write them an email... i am sure they know more than anyone. ;)
thanks...it is his new york office. other potentials im waiting to here on are robert sterns firm and cesar pellis. libeskind seems most interesting however...
...so the choices are stern, pelli, and....libeskind? that's quite a difference huh?
if you can afford it, danny is much more fun to work with than the other 2 old farts you will probably never see or interact with.
haah yeah afford it is the main factor...libeskind pays next to nothing if im attempting to live in ny
what does he pay?
she pays $1500. (nina, his wife, runs the whole show) That's pretty much next to nothing considering ny living expenses. I heard they expanded the office a year ago, or thereabouts and must be employing roughly 50 people. Interns usually do the typical stuff at his firm: build models, do 3D, maybe a little CAD, and anything to build his ego.
$1500 per month? yeah that would bea little tight living in new york. better go share a place with some friends out in brooklyn. maybe it's worth going into a little bit of debt if it's a short internship
$1500? that's almost 4 times what you'll earn @ OMA (depending on how weak the euro is)
what a deal!
As an employer I would just add that. . .
A short stay at any firm, starchinect or not, would not mean anything to me. If an applicant worked at my favorite firm for less than a year or so, it would not add any credibility to me as an employer. I personally passed on an offer to work for Morphosis for free after grad school and am glad that I did.
Many people do not have the option of staying longer than a summer internship. I feel like having a 'starchitect' or two on your resume before graduating from school (im talking undergrad non-architecture school here, but i would guess it would be similar for masters programs or graduate arch schools as well) can lend a hand to both impressing upon future employers and grad school admissions even if nothing but to give a second look at what this applicant/future employee has to offer.
If a short stay is your only feasible option at this point, wouldn't it be more helpful to be taken under the wings of a well known firm as opposed to a lesser noted one?
Because I have certainly come to find that many impressive firms look more strongly at applicants who have had experience at firms equal in status (it increases their hirability). I mean it seems to make sense--reviewing an application of an intern that was able to work for a very good firm takes away a large portion of the liability that this person is inept at such things as important computer programs or model-making skills. So maybe it won't help for some future positions, but if this person shows strong promise in addition to their past work as summer interns at notable firms, it certainly cannot hurt, right?
why do all these cool architects like morphosis, eisenman, oma, etc all pay so poorly? that's seriously stupid.
casct84 - I agree. I've worked for some starchitects myself during my undergrad stages and I think that, at that stage, it's good to expose yourself to successful design based firms.
Sure, you need 'real world' experience, and working for the starchitects will only give you quite limited responsibility, but I think that can be fixed at grad school level, once you've had a chance to nurture your design skills.
...and it's true what you say - starchitect firms like to stick to their own. There seems increasingly to be two tiers of workers - the starchitecters and the 'normals' - who don't ever really seem to cross onto each other's paths. (when I say 'tier' I am not suggesting any differerence in ability here, btw)
successful design based firms pay so poorly because that is the only way to fuel the "successful design". the many study models, charrettes, endless design possibilities and solutions and reworks and do overs can only be done with low or unpaid labor of idealistic and passionate youth. for those who think wearing an architecture sucks shirt and flip flops to work is a perk and are willing to work 16 hours a day i say rock on. but none of this work is billable beyond a point and really only serves the starchitects marketing efforts. successful design does not mean successful business. don't get the two confused.
vado: that is a truly insightful perspective I had never considered in exactly that way before.
A project manager I used to work for (he was very production-oriented) always said that he could schedule/scope the amount of time for DD's and CD's, but "design time" was always an unknown.
Which begs the question: is good design the result of "many study models, charrettes, endless design possibilities and solutions and reworks?" (Maybe it's time for me to brush up on my firm-type-matrix that shows the difference between service-oriented firms and design-oriented firms... hrm...where did I put that chart?)
um..sorry...what was the topic of this thread? Ah yes.. casct04, consider yourself lucky for landing a job offer from a firm that you know very little about. You must have exceptional design skills that transcend your lack of knowledge about the firm. Congratulations.
maybe you should work for frankie gehry. i guess he's the only starchitect who pays!!
------
Most architects of Mr. Gehry's stature can staff the lower rungs of their office with volunteers and interns. "I am very proud," he says and sits up at the conference table. "Everybody gets paid. Everybody here is paid. There's no freebie interns. I've never done that. A lot of my colleagues do that, but that offends me so I've never done that." Like only one or two other topics in our conversation, this issue of how he cares for the people who work for him is something that seems to get him excited. "I am very proud," he says, again referring to his employees, "that they always get cost of living index raises and bonuses and more."
---------
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009430
i wonder if any starchitects of today ever worked for the starchitects of yesterday... something tells me no.
it seems to me that if you truly want to learn how to be a good designer, working in a starchitects office is not the way to do it.
if you just want to work in a starchitect's office, well then by all means go enjoy yourself! live the nyc life, supposedly everyone should do it once, right?
i am always curious as to why one would value oneself so little as to work for free for a firm in which they are doing the same activities with the same paucity of principle face-time as they would be in any other, say, corporate firm where they would be paid for their time at least. if you're just going to build models either way...
there was a thread sometime ago about current (new) famous architects who had worked at OMA - and its a very long list.
i think it's a very different design culture at a high-design starchitect's office. even if you're just building models there (as you said, myriam, same as at a corporate office...) you're building models really good stuff and you're soaking in the design skills and abilities and principles that make starchitects great. you're also making contacts with really talented, ambitious people who may help you become your own starchitect one day. what you said is like saying, why go to princeton over university of alaska, when you're just building models and reading about theory and drawing stuff and learning computer skills either way. it's the same basic skills but there's a world of difference in how you will intellectually develop while doing it and a world of difference in the person you will become when you're through.
"i wonder if any starchitects of today ever worked for the starchitects of yesterday... something tells me no."
it certainly doesn't hurt ...
mies, gropius and corb all worked for peter behrens
kleindDytham, makoto Yokomizo & Kazuyo Sejima worked for Ito
botta worked briefly w/ corb
venturi worked for kahn
suoto de moura and peter boyd worked for siza
dermot cody worked for pawson
valentin beath worked for zumthor
rick joy worked for will bruder
annette gigon worked for herzog + de meuron
BIG, JDS, REX, work, zaha, FOA, mvrdv, studio gang, xavier de geyter, neutelings, mike guyer, mathias sauerbruch worked @ OMA
tod williams worked for meier
and i think shigeru worked for ando, but i might be wrong...
robust is dead on, it the ideas and principles that the intern is exposed to that differ from a "normal" firm.
but that doesn't resolve the lack of pay thing.
totally sucks. gehry has the correct take on that. my design/business partner worked for a starchitect (a pritzker winner even) here in tokyo and was paid a living wage as an intern; i think this is cuz the starchitect in question is a gentleman, and of a slightly older generation than ito/sejima, etc.
i know people who work killing hours for starchitects, and also know a few who have burned out after the constant need to make meetings at 3am, etc. which is stunningly absurd. i guess it pays for the starchitects, but is at the very least bad kharma if not a waste of resources...
vado has a point about the economics of starchitecture. look at the sheer number of models that oma produces for any project. they are innumerable, and i think a big part of why they are able to stay on their game. how to do the same while paying staff properly is a big question...
as far as the original post goes, i imagine working for liebeskind would be interesting and worthwhile for a bit, for reasons presented by many above...on other hand, i am quite impressed with pelli's son's work with sustainable tech...design quality not so high, mind, which is a pity.
tod wiliams worked for meier? interesting, i wouldn't have guessed that in a million years. i forgot about sejima, i knew that...
meh, you make a good point in a way, robust. guess it's to each his own. i'd rather have more responsibility at a smaller office than be a cog in anyone's wheel, i guess. i am still young and green however, i'm sure my attitude will change a million times over.
i do still wonder, however, how many actual ideas you actually get exposed to in as an unpaid monkeyboy in a large firm, no matter how famous. to me the analogy is closer to something like, why go to X school whose program only consists of paper architecture when you could go to Y school and learn paper architecture, building, enviro systems, etc etc? one choice simply offers more experience than the other, to me. and i'm not truly convinced that the quality of "discussion" that goes on at a starchitects office is truly quantifiably "better" than the discussion going on at many other firms. Guess it's personal choice.
i would be very surprised if the quality of experience and the motivation of the staff was not, on average, higher in a starchitect office. if the office is run like oma, or even ito's shop then you are only a cog if you want to be, as it is a ripe atmosphere for people with something to say and do to step up to the plate. big corporate firms i somehow doubt that is the case (it isn't so in the case of my ol classmates who went that route anyway).
why do you think, myriam, that ito (as an example, just cuz i know him best) doesn't know about the tech stuff you listed, nor that his staff don't deal with it? have you ever seen his buildings? they are incredibly complex at times, and structurally very innovative. model makers and junior grunts working on say the opera in taiwan are gonna learn some very interesting things about all of those things you assume starchitects don't deal with. they will in fact learn more, cuz they hae to understand the standard system very well in order to get it to stand up and roll over the way the architecture requires. they may be unfamiliar with 2x4 construction, but i would bet they would have a god understanding of structure and how it is used to deal with all kindsa forces...
similarly, with an office like maki, for instance, the attention to detailing as a part of system is much more developed than anything a corporate firm would bother with. not saying its better, but i suspect the education on that score is much higher at Maki than at SOM, even for a model builder, cuz that is where the details are worked out more often than not. i imagine it is much the same for stevie holl's place...
about the level of discourse being higher or not, well alejandro zaero paolo may not have learned all he knows at oma, ditto with winy mass, and similar, but they were at OMA cuz oma attracts the best and brightest. THAT is an amazing company to be thrown into, especially as an intern. even if not everyone is brilliant your chances of meeting and working with young supersmart people is quite good. which is why i would also recommend the ivies if you can get into them. the company you are in, school, or office, makes a very big difference to the work you do. environment is super important for creative education. i mean why do you think ito and rem have set their offices up to be filled with so many bright young people?
remuneration on the other hand...totally sucks. i think that is where the personal choice thang comes in. you know, the one where you decide whether all those cool things are worth the lack of a reasonable life for the duration of the experience or not...
well, i think as we grow up and become the next generation of starchitects, we need to change things and actually pay our interns. although architecture is very much an art, we need to really also start seeing it as a business too...work efficiently enough and charge the client enough that we can afford to live comfortably and pay all staff comfortably. there's no reason that, for example, as project architect in a medium size firm i should be making less money than a vice president in a medium sized business. it's time for architects to band together and start making money comparable to our intelligence and the amount of education we've got!
Starchitect firms might do more research, build more models, and do more design work than normal firms. However, design fees that starchitects firms charge client might be 2-3 times higher than fees normal firms would charge. So reallistically speaking, starchitect firms can't pay or don't want to pay their employees as high as normal firm would do.
Maybe working experience in starchitect offices are counted as studying without paying tuitions so their employees are willing to work for no-good pay. Besides, later on that period might help for marketing pursposes... So as long as mutual benefits exist, people will still happy. And .......an old story going oni
How long does young talent architects often stay with starchitects before they spin off?
To follow-up on auvn's question: What is the difference in tenure-before-spin-off for young architects working in starchitects' versus non-starchitects' offices? Further, are young architects working in starchitects' offices more likely to spin-off faster because they gained more design knowledge quicker than their non-starchitect counterparts? Or is a young architect in a non-starchitect office more likely to spin-off faster because he/she received a more well-rounded internship that included things like business development, project management, and face-to-face client skills?
Starchitects certainly design more. But I don't think you are going to learn how to design by working at one of those firms. I mean really - how many people that you went to school with "learned how to design" during all those studio classes when they were getting one on one instruction.
What you will learn is how to present ideas in the manner most currently accepted by the academy, you will make friends with like-minded folks, and you will learn a little bit about swagger, which is the single largest contributor (after having rich friends) to your success as a future practitioner. No matter how talented you are as a designer, you won't be successful as a spinoff until you can get rich clients on your own and convince them to build your shit.
As far the firm's economics go, firms do make money on design. Not many, but those that do market themselves as designers, and as Auvn sez, the increased fees pay for all those models. This how my current firm works, but to Vado's point, we couldn't do it without cheap intern labor to crank the shit out. From a firm management perspective, it can be done by paying your interns a living wage, but unless you are more humanist than most big name/ego architects, why would you? Lower wages means more people to do the work.
Casct04, if you are still a youth and don't need the money, I would go for it - your opportunities to take low paying jobs for cool folks will decrease dramatically as you get older. And if you go straight to HOK now you may regret the lost opportunity later. But keep this in mind:
If you are working 40 hours a week (ha!) and have a $1500 Salary/Stipend, you will be making about $9.30 an hour probably without health insurance. They will (and this is a legal gray area) treat you as a salaried, professionally exempt employee, so you won't be getting any overtime. And if they do it the same way Danny did when he was at Cranbrook (and he may have grown up since then), you will be treated as an independent contractor, so you will be responsible for paying self employment tax and the portion of Social Security that the employer is normally obligated to pay.
i am just curious which stararchitects pay to interns.....
I don't know why DCA thinks you don't get "more well-rounded internship that included things like business development, project management, and face-to-face client skills" at a starchitects office? Do you know this for fact, or is that just what you tell yourself?
It's about practice size not stature. If you work at a small office you'll get broader exposure, but the trade off is you probably work on small projects. in a big office you get more pigeon holed, but you get to work on bigger projects.
If you work for a starchitect, you'll be on a project that is more likely to be published and have a high profile.
also - to holz.box - don't forget about all of peter eisenman's kids (scott cohen, greg lynn, thomas leeser) and Diller and Scofidio (l.t.l, n archtects ...), ARO were steven holl's project architects. Oh and my favorite: Moneo worked on the sydney opera house for Utzon.
j-turn, you'll note that my speculations were phrased in the form of questions. I do not have first-hand knowledge about the working environment in the office of a starchitect. However, many of the testimonials here lead me to believe that a greater percentage of the staff in a starchitect's office is dedicated solely to modelmaking.
Also, I do not necessarily agree with your thoughts about firm size. In fact, I learned the most about business development and firm management during my years at a large (120-person) firm.
How can anyone get a chance at Studio Libeskind? I'm assuming they hire through in-house referrals like all the other big name firms.
This must be a record for the oldest thread revival. More than 10 years!