Architects

All architects are prostitu tes—that’s what Philip Johnson said; they’ll do whatever
it takes for the chance to build. Frank Lloyd Wright put it a little less brutally.
He said there are three things an architect should know: Number one, how
to get a commission. Number two, how to get a commission. Number three,
how to get a commission.
It’s a cynical take on a profession, certainly, and as the son of two idealists and
the husband of another, I’d like to argue that not every architect lacks principles.
But I’ve also had to face the fact that there’s a lot of truth to what the masters
said. Unlike artists or philosophers or writers, architects are totally dependent
on others—others with money, and lots of it, because it’s expensive to put up a
building, even a modest one.
That, to cite Philip Johnson again, is why it’s so tempting for architects to become the pawns of the powerful.



Breaking Gruond -Adventures in Life and Architecture by Daniel Libeskind