Depicted Space – A History of the Profession of the Architect From 1950-1980

My study focuses on what is known as the 'crisis in architecture'. In the 1940s the architect was still seen as the ‘hero’ and was admired for their artistic integrity.1 But by the end of the 1970s they had suffered from a serious decline of their social status: ”That there is a crisis is sometimes overlooked by architects; full of passionate intensity, they seem oblivious or even contemptuous of the fact that much of their work is hated by the people who live with it; they tend to accuse the public of lack of taste for not appreciating the formal qualities of brutal and inhumane buildings which one can only assume to have been built for the admiration of other architects.“ (Shepard 1974, p.5)Historians as well as sociologists usually deal with architecture as a profession, and by doing so, compare it to medicine and law. I make the argument that there are indications that suggest that architects after the Second World War lacked certain characteristics that usually define a profession. Besides the decline of social status already mentioned,

architects also experienced a loss of autonomy, due to an increase of the size of architectural offices – be it private companies with several hundred employees, planning authorities as part of the local government or building contractors that incorporated their own design division. They all favored the division of labor and, therefore, the specification of individuals on one part of the design and building process.

In order to approach a position that came close to the classical ideal of the architect as autonomous artist, an additional professional skill had to be developed – a sort of media literacy. In my opinion, professional associations, institutionalized training and licensing were of less importance to a younger generation of architects, for whom it became more important to generate publicity in order to secure commissions for building projects. For that reason, I believe, the architectural practice can only be fully understood by describing it as situated in a market economy and a media society, where a private architect needed to attract attention to his capabilities and expertise in order to commission contracts. While the professional ethos of architects forbade advertising either in Germany, the United Kingdom or the United States, the participation in architectural competitions and their publication in architectural magazines became integral steps in the career of an architect.

My main hypothesis, therefore, is that the success of yet unknown architects depended heavily on the production of images to visualize their ideas and concepts and the production of those representations of potential future projects can be seen as contributions which are as important for the profession of architecture as the buildings themselves. Further to this, I will assert that the intrinsic value of these images was immediately recognized and acknowledged by other protagonists such as clients, press, museums, industry, local businesses and politicians.

Räume und Grenzen. Der Raumdiskurs in Architekturzeitschriften zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts; in: Archimaera, Heft 5, August 2013, http://www.archimaera.de/2012/grenzwertig/raeumeundgrenzen