My favorite is: "The primary professional society for architecture, the American Institute of Architects, mainly promotes, as its name suggests, architects rather than architecture." By Victoria Beach
My favorite is: "The primary professional society for architecture, the American Institute of Architects, mainly promotes, as its name suggests, architects rather than architecture." A guest post in design intelligence by Victoria Beach suggests that: According to the definition of "institutional corruption" currently in use at the Center for Ethics at Harvard University, yes... it is corrupt | Via
10 Comments
I always thought it was.
And furthermore, we must include the popular architectural media's unrelenting support and spreading of this corruption.
I had a feeling this was happening. For example here in dc, the aia has their Washingtonian Residential Design Awards Submissions, and for the past 10 years the same people-companies have won the same awards, it kind of makes it meaningless the awards. The same cookie cutter design architect that was picked one year before, is the same thing all over again.
Why can they be more fair and really focus in architecture and help market other small business companies with the awards. Besides the other companies who have won consecutively the awards for the past 10 years they don't need the additional marketing, they are flooded with the same awards.
I am telling you the aia is a big gang/ club. They pass along the awards to one to another.
sad but true. :(
I'm sorry.. is this the same Victoria Beach who received the AIA Young Architects Award in 2008? It seems rather hypocritical (and unethical perhaps) to accept a prestigious award from the same organization you're decrying as corrupt and unethical. That having been said, I think she raises some very compelling points, perhaps if only to introduce an Ethics Fund at the end of the blog.
I tend to agree to a certain extent with some of her broader criticisms about the general training of an architect, from academia to the ARE, and later about the practice of architecture. I think her most compelling point is regarding the beholden nature of an architect to his/her client at the potential risk of users, etc:
"Architects, on the other hand, are charged with representing the needs of their paying clients as well as the often contradictory needs of the non-paying users and the non-paying public. There is no other designated agent for these unorganized interest groups."
It's a very intriguing point without an easy answer, and certainly worth studying and attempting to solve.
However, her insistence that the purpose of the architectural profession is "to make art out of the science of building" is highly debatable. Her points about architects needing greater awareness of social sciences and the humanities are probably accurate, but the idea that the practice (and education) of architecture is more an art than a science is philosophically questionable and legally inaccurate. Furthermore, much as I agree with many of the criticisms, many are more the result of systematic flaws in the larger economic and societal realms, not isolated to the field of architecture. Raising concerns at the professional level may lead to larger changes, but only if they are recognized as such.
Finally, I am especially skeptical that a fund or the people working in the ivory towers of academia, the GSD no less, are going to be the ones to reform the ethics and organization of the profession.
the issues brought up are real. the justifications are a bit tricky to accept.
The first premise defining the role of architecture at all sounds more like wishful thinking than reality, and many of the other points are not exactly reasonable. ie, the idea that interns are working in an un-accredited system is not quite right, is it? isn't the mentorship of a licensed individual a kind of accreditation? the problem is not the lack of a system, only that the system is not particularly in tune with reality...?
Not that the critique is incorrect but the lack of rigour in her presumptions seems to me too easy a target and makes it even easier to dismiss if anyone doesn't want to hear the message. Isn't the basic premise of change-making that unjust situations must be tackled with reasoning and actions of higher standards than the status quo otherwise requires?
am glad she is writing about it though.
FLM, if it is the same person, who better than her to level these kinds charges or make these assertions? Isn't that what we'd expect from the leaders of any particular profession? Not that I completely agree with all of her points, the one about the exam seems naive.
jump... I think your thoughts are similar to what I was thinking, only you presented yours much better. I am glad the critique was written, and it needs to start somewhere, but I think it does need to be more rigorous and reasoned, and hopefully that's where it will go from here.
Ken, I think that these changes can come from leaders of the profession, but I don't think accepting an award makes you a leader. It just seems like having it both ways to me to simultaneously accept an award and then criticize the award-granting body as "corrupt."
Even if she was a leader, I think it is much more likely, especially given the history of the profession, that reform will not come from the top. Not that I think the people at the top are inherently bad or corrupt, just that the relatively recent past shows a profession which did not have the greatest regard for public input. That may no longer be the case, and I think it's probably not, but people at the top are rarely the ones to bring about reform unless they are put in that position specifically to do that. I think the GSD and other elite universities, for all their other merit, should be considered a rather important and influential player in the systemic corruption that she lays out. The AIA, rightly or wrongly is an easy target, but it's not the only and perhaps not the biggest reason for the sort of ills she writes of. To her credit, her first criticism is of the academic role, so whether you agree with her points or not, there's some self-criticism there, which I think is necessary if any reform is to come of this.
Frank Lloyd Wright wrote in 1930: "We know who runs the business but, unless unpopulariy curious, we no longer know who makes the designs." Also AIA stands for "Arbitrary Institute of Appearances."
to define the purpose of the architectural profession as "to make art out of the science of building", is a very narrow, academic, premise.
actually, the failure of architecture, as a profession, to have a clear, definable, universally agreeable purpose is somewhere near the core of the problem.
Meaning, we don't even agree on what our Value to our clieants really is!!!
the other really interesting point: "Architects, on the other hand, are charged with representing the needs of their paying clients as well as the often contradictory needs of the non-paying users and the non-paying public." I would venture to say, possibly in the same narrow, academic tone i attacked above, that -good- architecture never considers the needs of the paying clients and the non-paying users/non-paying public mutually exclusive, much less contradictory. Hell, good architecture woulnd't know how to distinguish non-paying users to non-paying public. (/end narrow academic tone)
Lastly, the AIA has little to do with the state of our profession, and little power to change it. The professionals are at fault here.
not a good headline...yes, AIA is definitely corrupt, (maybe more a function of incompetence than greed) but the profession is not absolutely defined by the AIA.
i have to say it again: The AIA is not "them", it's us. It's you. If you don't like it, join it and change it. Frankly what my local AIA needs more than anything is bottom-up demand for change and ACTION toward that end, and as it happens a few of us last night after a Greg Lynn lecture and some wine planted a seed that may bring some change about.
It's true that the AIA and the profession are two separate questions. Whether the AIA is "corrupt" isn't the topic of the article. And the author's intention that "corrupt" used as in "corrupted file" not "criminal" seems to be a bit lost in this discussion.
It seems clear to me that the questions need to be asked. The profession seems to be in a rut. Society is changing much faster than we are, and I admittedly have a hard time seeing what we need to do to keep up or even lead.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.