If you come across an article that wrongfully excludes the name of an architect, send a link to props@aia.org. — AIA
I fear this poor author, Matt Tinder, is going to be inundated with emails. We've all seen the article in the local newspaper announcing a new development along with a gleaming rendering of the building with the credit tag "Artists rendering". This makes steam come out of my ears!
Matt's article tries to approach this all-too-common situation in a calm, logical way: Playing the Long Game. Hopefully the tips in the series will help our profession begin to strategize how we can move media outlets towards more frequently including the fact that someone designed that object that is the focus of the article.
As this is the beginning of a series, it will also likely cover the concern that by bringing to a reporter's attention the omission of an architect's name we reinforce the perception of architects as raging egomaniac artistes. (<sigh> It often feels like we're damned if we do, damned if we don't). By "taking the long view" we can potentially design a way to make sure that credit for work is a natural outcome of heightened awareness of the important role architects play in shaping the built environment that affects us all.
Admittedly this comes at a particularly sensitive time for me, which I'll expand upon in the comments. In the meantime, let's see some examples, both here and to the props@aia.org tip line, of egregious omission of the architect's name in public media.
9 Comments
Uh, Ms. Sink?
I see this a lot, always bugs me. To be fair, I'm just as disappointed when architectural media fail to mention who the client / developer / builder of a project is, or even what the building is used for! (I'm thinking of one popular architecture website in particular, not this one...)
And it drives me nuts when I occasionally read a blog / puff piece starting with 'Architect XXX is building...' When they clearly mean 'designing'. It's not surprising the public seems unclear what architects do or who they even are when it's so often omitted or mis-stated.
We could delve further into the stories that do mention name-brand architects without naming the local architects actually delivering a project, but that's probably going too far. Reading these forums I realize many aspiring architects understand little about the nature of authorship and professional responsibility in those complex work relationships.
Um, yeah. So read this article at the link and tell me who is the architect whose "intention was to have the den and the porch act as one space".
http://www.ibj.com/articles/54644-architects-home-emphasizes-its-mid-century-roots
Aspects have some resemblance to John Yeon's works which includes John Yeon's Watzek house.
I'm not saying it is the same. It carries ideas that are seen in both. There is that connectedness between interior and exterior space that be traced back to Asia such as Japan. In this case, you have glazing but it is strongly to connecting the interior with the exterior.
I have actually been to the Watzek House. One that I would argue is a great opportunity to go there and experience the space as well as other works of John Yeon.
Richard, seriously. That's totally not the topic.
Was it your addition?
It doesn't help that they list the current owner's Architecture firm in the first sentence. Mislead much?
On the nose, SneakyPete! They even list the (my) client for the addition, but somehow gloss over naming the actual architect.
Have a real problem with our local newspaper that never mentions the architects. The publisher was a friend of mine and I asked him one day why that is, and he answered “Could be they don’t pay to advertise in the newspaper”.
Yeah, I think it comes from newspapers thinking it's free advertising.
Which is bollocks because they "advertise" the renderer and photographer (not to mention the homeowner)...
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