I first visited Los Angeles in 1987 and the joint was then jumping for architects, as it was in many cities caught up in the building boom of that time. Then I moved from London to LA in 1991 and found all my new architect friends out of work, in the economic slump of the early 90s. The New York Times was running articles[...] that sounded remarkably similar to the Salon piece in their “it will never be the same again” declarations about the profession. — blogs.kcrw.com
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Frances brings up some good points, but this recession cannot necessarily be compared to previous recessions in the same way:
Indexed job loss for prior four recessions
I totally agree Paul, and one insight I have heard from economists on a similar graph is notice how it takes longer and the recovery is more anemic in more recent times, we do not bounce back like we used to.
One correction in terms of nomenclature, this is a depression.
I agree that starchitects are not going to disappear, and that the more the income gap widens the more likely it is that there will be super-high end stars designing for super-high end clients aka collectors. I would hope, though, that one result of the current recession will be a broadening of what "architecture" means to include so many of the interesting things that are *not* huge and high-dollar starchitect-branded-developer-driven or cultural-institution-donor-funded buildings, but small, new, personal and interesting challenges: the "truffles" that Barbara Bestor wants us all to look for. I'd say Ball-Nogues' piece in the article is one such project, though as an institution-funded art piece it also can fall into the realm of "collectible". What about a food truck, a guerrilla bus stop bench, a custom window, a chicken coop, a canopy, a front door, an emergency stair tower? All those things can, I hope, be examples of good design fulfilling a need, aka architecture.
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