The perils of introversion

The perils of introversion

For some time now I've been coordinating and compiling a research proposal concerning some extension of traditional architectural activities - let's leave it as cryptic as that. The first hing that struck me was that there was no reason why this extension hadn't been realised yet; in many respects, it's just an additional service architects could offer, a simple extra application of stuff they do anyway.

The second thing was the number of unsolicited telephone calls and emails I received from people from other disciplines who insisted they should join the project. They were not exactly offering their capacities and asking whether we could use them, they were actually quite insistent they should be included, often on the basis of an earlier, fuzzy acquaintance or some unhappy past collaboration. Their key argument was that we needed them, that the project would not succeed without their contribution.

I tried to be polite and explain that it would be a primarily architectural project, implying that their own discipline was outside its scope, but soon realised that they felt strangely at home in the architectural domain. They saw proposing what architecture should do within their remit - not as clients or users of the built environment but as experts with some authority.

This prompted a question in mind but did not ask it: would they behave in the same manner towards someone with a proverbially high skill or high knowledge level, like a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist? I doubt that. Architecture is one of those areas where almost everyone feels at home, usually for the wrong reasons and with wrong intentions. That everyone knows buildings as a user, that many can arrange furniture in a room, that some can build or even plaster a wall doesn't mean that they all know architecture, that they may dictate its scope and direction.

Regrettably, architects may be at least partially to blame for that. If other architects remain the main audience of architects if architects do not know more than the rest about the schools, hospitals, offices and other types of buildings they design, if they don't care to demonstrate their mastery of not just form and style but also use and utility, people may assume that there isn't much in this architecture lark and other scientists may believe that architecture has little knowledge of its own to offer on matters they may know themselves or just be interested in from their own perspective.