What does it mean to be an architect today? What are the conditions for practicing this profession? In the series "The Profession of Architect" we address these two questions to Polish architects and female architects, and illustrate their statements with unrealized office projects. In the next installment of the series, Jozef Bialasik of B2 studio talks about the profession of an architect.
Jozef Bialasik
© B2 studio
1 What does it mean to be an architect today?
The question is so general and broad that any answer will be inherently fragmentary and cover only part of the reality of the profession. An architect is someone who creates architecture, but does not create it himself, and there are as many definitions of architecture as there are people trying to define what it is. The definition changes according to time, era and cultural context. But while the forms, ways and methods of the profession change, at least two things never change.
First, an architect is someone who turns intangible, abstract concepts and ideas into tangible concrete through his ideas and decisions. These concepts can be of various registers, such as comfort, prestige, functionality, worship (of God, for example), lightness, transparency, justice and so on. Of course, each project made by an architect deals with more than one concept. "Programming" these initial ideas, concepts is no longer necessarily up to the architect, it is often decided by the broader client, while the quality of the architect's work depends on how clear these abstract goals are to the viewer and how much they meet his expectations, requirements.
Secondly, the architect is a super-coordinator(archi means from Greek: ruler, governing). No work of architecture (understood as an object, landscape, or even more) can be created without the many people involved in its creation, specialists, organizations, authorities. Each of these factors is specialized in something and does not think about the whole and the goals I wrote about above. This is what the architect must keep in mind and manage the cooperation in such a way as to achieve them and make the established ideas legible. This means that he should have great knowledge in many fields, which is difficult or even impossible, so the most important thing is to know when he doesn't know something (and ask the one who knows).
What I described above is, of course, the answer to how I understand being an architect at the meta level, but it is realizing it in this way that allows you to properly act at the level of everyday life of specific projects.
2 What are the conditions for practicing architecture?
In a word: bad. The naked eye can see that there is a great imbalance (de facto lack of it) between the scope of services, requirements and responsibilities and with the remuneration for this work. Added to this is the burden of "cooperation" with all sorts of institutions, offices, which consumes a huge amount of time and energy, giving nothing in return on the quality side. This is due to the weakness of the law and regulations, but above all (one is related to the other) to the downright programmatic lack of any coordination between different institutions and even organizational units of the same administrative body. This is a widespread and pervasive disease. A major "global" problem is also the lack of adequate remuneration for author's supervision on site. This applies to the entire range of architectural services, but in this area it is a particularly drastic problem. Can anything be done about it? Without self-awareness and unity of the architectural community, no, which does not change the fact that this also requires changes in the law in the long run. Without this, we are left to our own devices. And I have a deep conviction that this is currently the case. Everyone is managing somehow, but you don't see any institutional real support. What is needed, therefore, is a very broad view (the issue is multifaceted) and work at the grassroots, and that is what conversation and exchange of views are for. This is where we need to start.
Jozef BIAŁASIK
B2 studio
