Before the professionalization of architecture in the nineteenth century, it was standard for an aspiring mason or carpenter to begin his apprenticeship at fourteen and to become a master builder by his early twenties.
Architecture is not a profession for the faint-hearted, the weak-willed, or the short-lived.
One of the most persistent yet elusive dreams of the Modern Movement in architecture has been prefabrication: industrially made structures that can be assembled at a building site.
All architecture, classical or not, must have some sense of order, and order is much harder to achieve without the straight lines and right angles that have dominated the building art from time immemorial.
There is no sadder tale in the annals of architecture than the virtual disappearance of the defining architectural form of the Modern Movement – publicly sponsored housing.
Considering my specialization in architecture, I’m not surprised that the first graphic novel to thoroughly engage, not to say captivate, me is Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor’s ‘Batman: Death by Design.’
Truly great architecture always transcends its stated function, sometimes in unanticipated ways.
One of the stated goals of the postmodern movement in architecture was a greater sensitivity to the people who live in or use newly designed buildings.
Architecture was the last of the major professions to devise a formal ‘cursus honorum’ before its practice could be undertaken.
From the outset, MoMA followed the Bauhaus’s strict prohibition against design that even hinted at the decorative, a prejudice that skewed the pioneering museum’s view of Modernism for decades.
Any set of decisions about design is inevitably influenced by cultural prejudice, no matter how intent an architect might be to avoid it.
The most basic task of any museum must be the protection of works of cultural significance entrusted to its care for the edification and pleasure of future generations.