Musings of a young architect in three acts

First Act.

I had a conversation with a friend about the state of our little firm on my way home from an officemate’s despedida. Upon reaching my house, I couldn’t help but feel sad about a couple of things – first, about the slow and steady decline of the office from its glory days in the 60s to the respectable but unmistakably diminished prestige in the early 2000s. I still think that compared to most architectural offices, the people in our office still take in architecture by the mouthful and digest it piece by piece – thank God we haven’t really been reduced to architects who puts things in a technical way, or outsourcing foreign projects and what have yous. But based from the stories from the yesteryears, the fervor and passion for design and architecture isn’t as keen as before.

One of the partners in the office has been biding his time before retirement (sidenote: I think a little bit belated at this point), and slowly turning over new projects he would normally adopt to the other partners in the office. I find this sad. Although it’s inevitable, I feel sad because of what impact his retirement would be on the company. There seems to be a lack of his apparent ‘heir’ in the current staff. It’s like he is the sum of each partner’s quality. Anyway, I guess that no one can really replace him. He’s really an old school architect. For me, he is the closest person I personally know of that exemplifies what an architect should be – a designer, a visionary, and most important, a gentleman. (I don’t know ‘tatay’ personally so he doesn’t count, hehe.) I wish I knew of more architects like him.

Sigh. I wonder what the office would be without him. Would the company change its direction? Or has the company’s direction been at a limbo for many years now, only being held up by one or two ‘visionary’ architects? Already many people in the office fear what would happen by the time he leaves the office. *Sigh* The end of a firm with a prolific record? Degenerating into just another architecture office without any keen architectural vision? Or it would take on a new direction that’s way different from what ‘tatay’ envisioned?

I know I can never hope to be like the person I look up to in the office in terms of how he designs. But in my own small way, I want to help preserve the design principles my little office has espoused through the years. I want to help keep our firm’s sense of vision and concept crisp and clear. I don’t want to be repeating details from former projects with mangled notions of how it’s supposed to be translated. As much as I can, I want to imbibe fully the way and the approach of the firm in tackling design problems, and then pass them on to future employees in the office. Some people may dream of making a name for themselves. I don’t think I’m one of them. I’ve always believed I’m better off working behind the scenes and making things better. If I can’t be able to really be known for my own designs, at least I would help continue the vision set by the ones before me.

Second Act.
Anyway, this line of thought led me to another thing that made me sad – second, I really feel that I am a half baked architect. I’m not putting myself down. (honestly!) It’s just that I already feel the inadequacies of my alma mater in the way it trains its students. I don’t know if we lacked diverse teachers, or each teacher in UP, being trained in the same school of thought (UP of course), just passed on the same ideas and inclinations to the students, or a combination of both or more of these.

My main concern is that the education we (referring to my batchmates, and possibly the batches right before and after us) got from our homegrown professors is a little bit ….uninspired. I wished they encouraged us to think more out-of-the-box. Now that I think about it, they focused too much on researching technical details that maybe better left to graduate students. I know our professors mean well. I know for one thing they tried to inspire us to look up to works of the masters before us (especially our structural design teacher, who kept throwing his Renzo Piano books at our feet). They also tried training us in the way real design problems are dealt with. What I mean is through careful research, methodology, SWOT analysis, the works. It’s more of I don’t feel that the students really picked up the passion for architecture. I should know – as a student, I just viewed the readings as another burden to a growing list of things to do.

I just wish that some (or all of them) inspired us to have the heart for designing things and not just deal with each design as problems waiting to be solved. Yup, we know the step by step process (and for this I’m still grateful), but I don’t think anyone effectively imparted inspiration to students in designing buildings, except for maybe one or two. And by inspiration, I just don’t mean merely encouraging students to read up on works of other great architects. I mean the kind of inspiration that inspires one to look up to how great architects envision things and eventually, pursuing his own design aesthetic/principle.

Others might argue – not all are meant to design. If we were all designers, nothing would be built. But still! I’m sure that in any handful of architecture students, there are people meant to design. And thus, they must be weaned in the proper direction. In a broader sense, tf as a nation we were to establish a sense of architecture, we must first start with individuals who have a keen sense of how they envision architecture. We need individuals who are attuned to how and why they design things. Anyway, even if people might argue that it really depends to whose sense of Filipino (?) architecture we are basing things on, at least we can say we haven’t stagnated in the effort, hehe.

It’s kind of harder nowadays to realize such romantic notion. For one thing, globalization has turned our precious assets into cheap labor. There are so many firms nowadays that rely on outsourced projects in order to stay afloat. Or what about the Pinoy diaspora? So many of our colleagues have left for ‘greener pastures’ called Dubai, Singapore, etc. No one can really blame them – to many people, there are more important things in life than pursuing a sense of artistry and architecture.

Third Act.
Going back to my concerns for the office, I’m still not confident about how I really view architecture and what my design principle is, but I hope that in time I’ll have a strong sense of the design principles of our firm, develop my own design aesthetic, make my own little contribution to our office and help the firm continue on in the process.

Although reality check. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in the office. I don’t know how long I could keep up with the ‘starving architect’ phase. I don’t know if I’ll be able to balance things like empty coffers and the need to pursue a higher goal of practicing architecture in the way I desire to. I-DON’T-KNOW.

It’s quite amazing though. I’ve realized that some of the things I value in life will not necessarily lead me to fame, fortune and glory, but hey. I still want to have a well-fed family. I also dream of taking care of my kids and husband and basically a life that’s not wholly-architecture/career-oriented. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make ‘my own little contribution’ with my stint with the firm with my other desires in mind. There are just so many factors. *Sigh* I don’t know whether I’ll be tempted to leave for a higher paying job or ultimately shift careers just to give my family a comfortable life.