terra non firma: architects are selfish bastards

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

architects are selfish bastards

or so the implication goes in the recent new york times article on plagiarism in architecture. as one architect in the nytimes piece points out:

Markus Dochantschi, a New York architect, concurred. “Think of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns,” he said. “Or Cézanne and Pissarro, who quite openly responded to each other's work. In art, that's considered creativity, not plagiarism. If there were more of a communal sprit in architecture, people wouldn't see this as a problem.”

I had sent the article to one of the senior fellows at the lear center who has been a bit of a role model and mentor for aram and me. he had already seen it, of course, and responded in kind on his blog. check it out for a thoughtful analysis of how creative communities drive innovation and its relationship to architecture.