‘THE MOTHER OF THE ARTS’ WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
Over the last 40 years I have had hundreds of people say to me, “I always wanted to be an architect.” That may change.
Architecture has been called “The Mother of the Arts.” Architects from Howard Roark in “The Fountainhead” to Zaha Hadid and Connecticut’s own recently departed Kevin Roche and Cesar Pelli, the “Hero Architect” are virtually iconic in the public view.
This is a dramatic time of change in every profession, but especially in all things that are part of making buildings. Doctors will still save lives, lawyers will still effect justice. But architects may no longer be central in creating beauty in building.
So technology may make that fully branded persona simply inapplicable to the next generation of those who want to be architects. It is practically a cliche to say that the “new technology” (where our phones have replaced newspapers, books, cameras, conversation and, to me, much of our humanity) has “changed everything.” Those early signs of pervasive change will touch every aspect of every profession, including architecture.
Change in architecture is nothing
new. During the last decades of the 20th century, hand drawing disappeared and the computer and electronic printing completely wiped out lead pencils, drafting on mylar and ammoniabased printing from original drawings. The internet meant instant communication about these new ways of describing construction.
But I think those changes will
A 1994 cover of Progressive Architecture Magazine, proving that while architecture may be the “Mother of the Arts,” it has always had an evolving identity in our culture.
pale in comparison to the arrival of artificial intelligence. Rather than redraw or reinvent each structure, AI may simply offer one huge database to anyone considering building anything. So fewer and fewer architects will be needed to implement the designs that are created.
Two years ago the American Institute of Architects economist, Kermit Baker, buried the lead of his story “How Many Architects Does Our Economy Need?” in the AIA’s magazine. Baker notes, after a fair amount of rosecolored commentary, that “…we’ll need about 25,000 additional architectural staff over the coming decade...This need accounts for about half of all future graduates of accredited architectural programs nationally who are eligible to work in the United States.”
Simply put, 6,000 students annually receive a professional degree in architecture and there are 2,500 jobs available each year — at best. What does that mean if you want to be an architect today?
“Why would somebody want to be an architect in 2019?” I asked the heads of Connecticut’s two academic programs, Deborah Berke of Yale, and Jim Fuller of the University of Hartford. Their answers revealed that human motivations do not change, but the means of manifesting those desires can become completely unknowable.
“I think technology has changed how we design, how we produce, how we quantify, and how we present our design ideas but I do not think it has changed the reason someone decides to become an architect,” Dean Berke said simply.
I can hear those unchanging motivations in Department Chair Jim Fuller’s response as to why students want to be architects: “To make the world a better place. Maybe a poetic answer. But that’s what separates the engineers, technicians, contractors, and others from architects and artists. And the architects (and artists) bring beauty into the world. Beauty that all humanity treasures, remembers, are inspired by, and strive to emulate.”
Even with 55% of those spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and cash to obtain a degree that might not ever be used, the essential compelling vision of creating art in buildings and communities remains undimmed. But the means and methods of that creation will be severely changed in the 21st century.
To me, a dinosaur, that means that the unchanging appeal of the profession of architecture needs to change the way it will be effectively taught.
“Back to the Basics” in design might seem foolhardy in a profession of extreme technological evolution, but the radical and evolving changes in how designs are implemented into buildable information means that artificial intelligence may simple render the 21st century’s education unknowably beyond those essential skills of design.
My advice to those who might want to be architects would be to jump into the profession the same way actors, musicians, writers and artists do. First as a devotion — to create beauty that is buildable — then, perhaps, as a career that supports their lives. That is a hard reality, but, as the University of Hartford’s Jim Fuller states, these are “interesting times indeed.” Duo Dickinson is a writer and architect based in Madison.