Knowing the Services Architect’s Provide

Published by cravat | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Miscellaneous, Real Estate

Perhaps, the biggest and most controversial topic in the world of architecture is the scope of services provided. In the recent past, the architect has moved away form being the translator of the vision into being at least partially its creator.

The definition of an architect is usually given as the person who plans, designs, and then oversees the construction of a building. This is pretty much an accepted definition. The issue of the scope of services provided really begins to become a bit controversial when you consider the idea of the origin of the vision itself.

The architect from the beginning of time was the servant of the client. The client being the person who originated the vision. It might have been a rich man who wanted a home or a King who desired a monument to his country’s glory. The vision would have come from the desire of someone who might have a concept of what they wanted, but lacked the ability to translate this concept into something practical that could actually be built. A man might want to have a home that floated among the clouds to insure complete security and privacy, but the technology did not exist to make this dream into reality.

Therefore, the idea of planning and design really revolved around the word desire. Desire was one thing, but reality was another. It was the role of the architect to bring the two together into a unified design. In some cases, it might have been the role of the architect to explain why the vision could never be practically realized. In order to fulfill this role, the architect must have the ability to understand the client and what exactly it was that they desired. The good architect was a servant to the client and not his ruler. He would not dictate what would be built and force his own visions on the client, but would rather serve as the instrument by which the client’s visions could be translated into wood, stone, or steel.

In the early part of the 20th century, many architects began to break away from this idea. Different schools of architecture actually could have been seen as foisting their own visions on people. Award winning designs were many times ultra modern visions from the imaginations of the architect. They were expressions of his own creativity and his own artistic desire to create beauty and pave new ground in his profession. Clients were not consulted as to their own desires any longer and many times the creations of the architects, awesome and innovative as they might be, were also not practical realizations of the client’s wishes.

The idea of the competition gives a good look at this idea. Two classic examples might be the St.Louis Gateway Arch and the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. In both of these cases, the desire was expressed rather simply and no real concept was given as to just what the actual physical form the structure would take. This freed the architect to utilize his creativity to the maximum degree and create something totally unique. Yet still, it was the desire of the client that dictated the concept and then it was the client that judged the entries to find the design that best translated the desired concept into reality.

Once this was done, the second to phases of planning and oversight could be done by the architect to complete the project. Done this way, the results were spectacular.