U2 The current architect

DEFINITIONS:

“To be an architect is to know how to recognize and interpret the reality that surrounds us, but also to be able to dream and imagine things that don’t exist yet.
The architect works with sight, by perceiving and interpreting the piece of the world in which he is immersed, but he also uses his hand to define and shape new objects, to change his environment. Eye and hand are united in a single mental process that connects what exists with what is dreamt.” Alfonso Muñoz Cosme


“To be an architect is to be able to turn a house into a dream. And at the same time being able to turn a dream into a house.
I repeat that an architect, what he/she does is build ideas, dreams, materialize ideas. Or make dreams come true.” 
Alberto Campo Baeza

OUTSTANDING ARCHITECTS:

“Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier came from a tradition in which architects still knew how to do things, how to do things well. We must force universities to train carpenters and leather workers. Architects want to be philosophers or artists now”. 
Peter Zunthor
“Design is a continuous process of finding.  I choose a number of different elements and organize them according to the client’s wishes, the terrain conditions, and the ideas I may have myself.  I put these elements together in a system and try to move forward to the design phase”.
Kazuyo Sejima



To the young one who dedicates to architecture
/Frank Lloyd Wright (1931)/

1. None of you should take architecture for a living, unless you love it as a principle of action, for itself, willing to be as faithful as you are to your mother, your buddy, or yourselves. 
2. Get in the habit of immediately thinking about the why of things regarding whichever effect you like or dislike. 
3. Do not take for granted that something is beautiful or ugly, but crumble every building, studying every detail.  Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful. 
4. Get used to the analysis.  Over time, the analysis will allow the synthesis to some a mental habit. 
5. Think “simple”. Order from the general to the particular, and never confuse them, if you do not want them to confuse you. 
6. To enter into practice without maturity is to sell your birthright as an architect in exchange for a crust or to die pretending to be an architect.
7. Take time to prepare yourselves.  Ten years of preparation for the preliminaries of architectural practice are few for any architect “who wants to rise” above his mediocrity. 
8. Enter the field where you can see in action the machines and methods that construct modern buildings or stay in direct and simple construction until you can naturally arrive at building design by the nature of construction. 
9. Consider it as desirable to build a hen-house as a cathedral.  The dimension of the project means little in art above the monetary question.  What really counts is the quality of character.  The character can be big in the small or small in the big. 
10. Do not enter any architectural competition under any circumstances, except as novices.  No competition gave the world anything of value in Architecture.  The jury itself is a selection of mediocrities.  The first thing the jury does is to review the designs and discard the best and worst, in order, as mediocrity, to be able to judge mediocrity.


FILM ABOUT LIFE OF YOUNG ARCHITECTS:

The 25-minute film offers a unique glimpse into the world of studio-based, design education through the eyes of a group of students finishing their final design projects. Interviews with leading professionals, historians, and educators help create a crucial dialog around the key issues faced by this unique teaching methodology and the built environment these future architects will create.