So it seems reading the letter of a Spanish Architect to a Newspaper. How is it where you live?Català - Spanish - Deutsch
I was reading today in La Vanguardia a heartbreaking letter of a Spanish Architect talking about what it means to be an architect today in Spain. The original one can be read here, I will translate it below.
You are lucky, Mies van der Rohe. You never had to see this. Sert, Coderch, Sota, I envy you. You left thinking that architecture was an exciting and possible effort. Oíza, Solà, Miralles, I envy all of you who died when this profession still existed. Today it is no longer so. Today I see my friends, I see myself, wandering around comfortless, ashamed to be architects, scared, wishing not to be an architect, to be something else, anything else.
"¿Do you have something for me? I can work doing anything you want". Who was going to tell us that we would see the end of our passion, of our work, of everything. "Anything, please" Aalto, Jacobsen, who coould tell it to us.
There is nothing left. Nothing at all.
BENITO CERENO
It is heartbreaking...I am curious, how is the reality in your own country. What do young architects do? Is it easy to find a job, a decent job, any job? Please, share below on the comments section. We will all benefit from it.
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young -- and not only young -- architects in greece are unemployed...
ReplyDeletethe law makes them redundant, the economic crisis makes them superfluous.
they'll do anything and everything, working for too many hours, for too little pay, with no benefits. they design very little, most delegated to dealing with bureaucracy or reduced to drafting.
i, too, wish i was not an architect.
Mexico
ReplyDeleteOver population of architects where no one is willing to pay for desgin
Drafting, selling,
repeting desgin as much as posible as no to invest in any thing new.
sad but true
What architects most urgently need to do right now:
ReplyDeleteBecome literate in using the latest and best web and software technologies. (Many of which are free or very very cheap.)
Become excellent marketeers. (Read Seth Godins Blog) In the world wide web space the old ways will not work. On the plus side: We already good marketeers, we just need to shift focus and be much more personal instead of just being interested in our own ideas.
Become extremely flexible- Invent new ways of doing and marketing a business. Find all kinds of things that can relate to architecture: Furniture making, energy analysis, making childrens toys.
Don't be boring: I recently visited Boulder in Colorado. One thing I noticed was the optimism of the place and the way that people invent businesse- even giving them funny names (Can't remember any of them) Even the people waiting on you liked being there. Europeans seem to hate their jobs. If you do invent a job, I'd say if its boring you will fail.
Stop being architects and start doing architecture. Despite all attempts by college and following that the Institute of Architects (not mentioning the full name here) to drown out any enjoyment I had of architecture, I still love it.
And lastly...... Sorry about this,,, but learn how to geomodel in sketchup and google earth. Get some models onto there. In a few years time you will have an extra revenue stream (virtual real-estate), and a fantastic way of doing quick, accurate presentations that will help your business.
Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDelete@viewsion, completely agree with you, all architects want to be jsut that "architects". People studying Engineering, or Economics,or MAtematics, study that, and then do whatever they like, can, want.
BTW, what do you mean by "In a few years time you will have an extra revenue stream" making money out of your GEarth models??
@viewsion i've been reinventing my job, repeatedly, for two decades... and it's the only way i've managed to survive in a decreasingly excellent professional environment.
ReplyDeletethe problem is that, here, people are simply not building or producing... and, if they are, they're do it without an architect.
yes, you can branch out into other types of work -- design anything... maybe a paper clip! learn, use, teach sketchup!
you're marketing sketchup, i use/teach autocad -- that's fine. but who is going to produce the paper clip, much less a building?
very few people in greece have the funds.