Architecture between money making and equity. A postscript to A'18

AIA's big topic at this year's convention was equity. This meant, keynote speakers were architects of color, women and sometimes female architects of color, such as Native American architect Tamar Eagle Bull.
And then there was Sheela Søgaard. She is a partner in Bjarke Ingels architecture firm BIG, the CFO to be specific, an non architect and a woman.

Sheela Søgaard

As a woman CEO in architecture, a male-dominated industry where only 18% of licensed architects are women Søgaard certainly is a trail blazer. But she is also a trail blazer with her message that architects should finally behave like real businesses. He talk was, well should one say: macho? Certainly it was tough talk. She clearly thinks that too many design folks are just too glad they can design to worry about the business side of thinks.  She even played a clip from the Dark Knight in which the Joker says

“If you are good at something, never do it for free” (Video Clip)

In a earlier conversation with Quartz she made it clear what she  thinks about architects who don't mind providing services before they are sure they would get paid.

Dark Knight:“If you are good at something, never do it for free”

It’s a virus in creative industries that you have to work at no compensation while giving away your best and most valuable ideas. Sogaard to Quartz

But to the relief of many of the architects in the gigantic audience gathered in New York's Radio City Hall, she didn't ask the creatives  to chase the money themselves, instead she suggested they hire somebody like her. in the words of one of the observers she turned the keynote address into a 30-minute masterclass on the firm’s business model, explaining how analytics are now used to see at various stages whether fees cover cost and at all times to request timely payments or suspend services.

 “Over the years, [Ingels] had found, if he was going to run a profitable and sustainable studio, he would have to either double himself or do less architecture.”

“One, never start a project without a commitment from a client or initial payment. And two, align delivery with payment. [This] might sound very basic to someone at a large firm, or someone who has been in business for a while, but I’ve found that architects and designers are the nicest, most grateful people in professional services. They are so happy when the phone rings and someone asks for a pitch on a site, and of course the client always needs it tomorrow and there’s just no time to put together paperwork or wire a payment.” (Sogaard)

The pitch to be tougher in business left many confused. What to make of it among all the other speeches about social consciousness, equity, community and better neighborhoods?

Radio City Hall: keynore speech by Sogaard

Push-back came the next morning from none less than this year's recipient of AIA's Gold Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. "I don't think that architecture should be just another profit center" James Polshek, FAIA,  said during a lengthy conversation moderated by July Eizenberg  who had received a local version of the gold medal in 2012 by the Los Angeles AIA. Polshek, 88, one of the grand old white man of the profession, seems to fit the characteristics which are typical for AIA's often criticized history, but his work has always been decidedly grounded in social consciousness. An exhibit at AIA New York's Center for Design includes board titled "Responsibility" with this quote:

"[we must] reassert the importance of architecture as a discipline in the service of others rather than in the service of self".   

Ingels quotes are all over TED talks and popular online magazine interviews such as dezeen.

I think architecture is rarely the product of a single ideology. It's more like it can be shaped by a really big idea. It can accommodate a lot of life forms. (Ingels)

“You only have to do things once before you can say that you have experience.” (Ingels) 

Without trying to be unfair to Bjarke Ingels, the young Danish architecture Wunderkind who called his firm BIG, and who credits Sogaard with much of his success, Polshek's modesty isn't what comes to mind when one thinks about the the CEO of BIG, who conquers the world with big ideas, big words and big structures.

James Polshek in conversation at A'18

Polshek founded "Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility" which is still around in 1981. Polshek then promoted nuclear disarmament and social services instead of military build up. During a time of political and social upheaval Polshek became  dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, from 1972 to 1987 where he completely revised the school's traditional curriculum in light of public discussion which then fundamentally questioned the role of architecture. I remember those years well because I went to school in those years when my alma mater in Stuttgart went through a similar transformation.

Not much in Polshek's biography indicates that his office ever applied Sogaard's methods and principles, yet he had become a well known architect, nevertheless, including some big projects such as the Clinton presidential library and New York's American Museum of Natural History for Earth and Space.

While the juxtaposition of Polshek's social consciousness and Sogaard's business acumen at A'18 may have been stark, in real life business awareness and social orientation are not necessarily mutually exclusive, especially if one makes the argument that making good money on commercial jobs is the precondition for being able to provide pro-bono work elsewhere.

Although architecture is generally a highly regarded profession, it is also widely seen a job where most won't earn a lot. (Median salary per US-News: $76,930, lawyers $115,820). The debate whether architecture should be seen like any other service profession (doctor, lawyer, engineer) or whether it is part of the arts, the nimbus of architects of being independent but "bread-less" has been around for a long time. It has informed curricula and the genesis of western architecture schools and has its roots in history as far back as ancient Greece and Rome and beyond when the architect was seen as a craftsman (always, a man, of course). Back then, the philosopher and the scientist were united in one person as well, which hasn't stopped scientists today to pretty much have shed philosophy, another art seen as "bread-less." Since then the profession has oscillated between a focus on art, on science, on business and on social awareness depending on how the societal winds blew.

If architects would be seen as able to dealing with money, it would potentially comfort clients who are worried about their construction budgets and suspect the architect to ignore them in order to promote her artistic inspirations. Such a twist would be especially intriguing considering Bjarke Ingels. What irony, if clients would be less concerned about his ego precisely because his shop knows how to deal with money!

Young architects (AIA lingo: "emerging professionals") entering the profession now will likely orient themselves on neither James Polshek nor Bjarke Ingels, no matter that both have a lot to say about the profession and both offer relevant contributions for today's discussions about equity, sustainability and fairer and healthier communities. That these topics are of current interest became evident through the record turnout at A'18, shorthand for the AIA Convention with equity on its banner under the title "Blueprint for Better Cities".

Staged women protest at AIA Convention (Photo: Fixsen)

An actionable outcome of the conference was Resolution 18-16 last week, an amendment to the AIA's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct document, requiring members to commit to “the equitable treatment of design professionals and staff of diverse backgrounds and identities, and to prohibit abuse and harassment within our professional community."

In Hell’s Kitchen, right around the corner from the convention the non-profit architectural advocacy organization the Architectural Lobby, "an organization of architectural workers advocating for the value of architecture in the general public and for architectural work within the discipline" which believes that architectural work "needs structural change to be more rewarding and more socially relevant" held its own “think-in” conference. It isn't recorded whether they took a position on either Søgaard or Polshek.
Klaus Philpsen, FAIA

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