The point I was trying to make above is that working for a starchitect for low pay at 25 yrs old could be the very best thing you could do for your career and future earning potential.
I frankly think it's shortsighted to worry straight out of college or grad school about how high a salary you can get—particularly if that high salary is at a crap firm. Do the thing that will most benefit your CAREER (not your bank account) five or ten years from that point. Worry about salary at 35 -- at 25, do something you're passionate about. Careers are long. You'll have time to make money in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
The other thing about working for a starchitect who's in the public eye is that it continues to pay off well after you leave. Say you worked for OMA for a year back in 1989. The fact that Rem has won the Pritzker, published huge books, and has done massive projects around the world since then is STILL PAYING YOU NOW, in 2007. The more fame Rem gets, the more your own standing grows, and only because you worked for him 20 years ago.
marlowe put it well. good design shouldn't be subsidized by paying poverty wages to employees. if someone does that it means they're not particularly good because they cannot convince people their design deserves more fee so they can pay their people.
vado retro i think has it wrong though. that again is the design of a firm or famous architect who cannot convince the client of the worth of their work and models and things they produce. stararchitects that clients actually really will pay for will have every piece of basswood, print out, and photograph charged to the client. because the client understands what they produce will be great and worthwhile for them. if a stararchitect isn't able to do that they haven't yet convinced the world their architecture contributes something extra to the client.
if someone is thinking the client isn't the only judge of the quality and value of architecture, read some previous posts.
jump's point that the stararchitects connections do pay off i'm not disputing. ivy league educations may also pay off. i'm not looking at this as a sour grape or anything. but the point i'm trying to make in this thread is that if a stararchitect cannot pay normal wages it's a sign that they are not good or the world does not see the value in what they are doing, only academia has made them a star.
this i think is different in some other arts. like a filmmaker who makes great films but is never able to make it huge and pay their crew anything is different. a filmmaker's goal may be to make something that they themselves consider interesting and they don't have to please anyone else. some of may think they are the greatest filmmaker and that's fine with something like film.
an architect however is being commissioned by a client and so they're work should really be judge differently. if the client doesn't pay extra for it, and architects cannot pay their employees any more than poverty wages, then obviously the client is not impressed by their work. the architect may go on and design beyond their means anyway but they are just satisfying themselves and the critics, not their client.
so architects who have built a great name for themselves but have payed poorly or are still paying poorly after they are famous are engaging in some artistic masturbation.
if you're going to do that just keep it in the realm of art where you're not going to have to hire slaves to realize your vision
although i agree with the general trend being posted here, there is always another way of looking at things; i still don't find any other reason for reknowed architects to hire people at low or no pay, except for the fact that they can do that, and save some money; and I personally don't think that's a good thing;
but then again, it's just my personal view; i've always tried to work for offices that have exposed me to great knowledge, quality projects, professional growth, and fair pay;
so, starchitects don't get the chance to hire me...their loss, right?!
there's nothing wrong with architecture being artistic masturbation and an architect only being well-recognized among academia. that architect just has to be okay with rarely finding clients and thus keeping architecture as an autonomous art.
as a general rule, prices are determined by some odd combination of quality and scarcity. for the most part, quality is subjective. scarcity is not all that subjective .
clients tend to be willing to pay more for design services when they perceive the service will offer either extraordinarily high quality - or uniqueness - or both. however, when clients only need, or want, the more common or prosaic, they tend to pay commodity prices.
firms operate the same way -- when high-quality talent is scarce, firms will pay higher and higher wages, provided they really need such talent to run their firms. not every firm really needs "high quality talent"
on the other hand, when high-quality talent is falling all over itself to obtain a position with the starchitect-du-jour, there's not much of a floor under the compensation that firm needs to pay.
moreover, when there's a lot of talent running around, but such talent doesn't offer much quality (due to lack of real world technical experience, say) then there's additional downward pressure on wages.
actually vado, there's considerable evidence to suggest that there's going to be a shortage of architects in the US over the next 15 years if the pace of work continues as it has the past 5-6 years (which, in my view, is a pretty big "if")
however, my belief is that the main problem is not so much numbers of graduates but rather what those graduates are able (or willing) to do in an office. the shortage referenced above probably is not related to design talent, but more likely related to production.
because of the focus of schools over the past two decades, most grads aspire only seem to be the next REM or ZAHA -- not so much the next Head of CDs at SOM.
grads who can't find fulfillment as designers and who are confronted by a future primarily focused on the technical or business side of practice easily get disillusioned and head off into other endeavors.
personally, I think young graduates who have a sensitivity to design but who enjoy producing the documentation needed to execute that design have a rosy future. I could use 2 or 3 of those in my practice right now and gladly would pay a premium to bring them on board.
I agree with quizzical with respect to the idea that everyone thinks they are going to be a design genius. The fact is that there is a creative side of architecture which is limited to very few people and then there are a lot of people that do the more technical work in order to produce someone else's design. I would say that the US is trying to catch up to architects in Europe. In Europe, they basically have architectural engineers and design architects. In New York (Design Architect/Architect of Record), this distinction is very strong as well, but it is not so strong in other areas of the country. Another problem is eventhough there are many people that fall on the side of architectural engineer (and will not admit it), they think they are going to be the creative architectural genius that is so rare.
To me it sounds like there should be people that specialize in different phases of projects (pre-design, SD, DD, etc). Or is that too simplistic?
every architect has their own design process and flow. some are way, way more inefficient than others. we as architects subscribe to the myth of the master architect as sole designer -- even though we work in a much different reality every day.
from my (second-hand) experience, a typical "starchitect" might be traveling half the time: for work, for academic appointments, and/or for copious amounts of r&r. meanwhile, the back office is trying desperately to make a real building and meet real deadlines while simultaneously not trying to contradict or overrule the design genius of their employer(s).
communication comes either via e-mail or phone -- or many times, not at all, as the starchitect is living inside their own head and oftentimes cannot bother to even tell the office where they're going.
when the odd day or two comes where the master is back in the office, the stress level skyrockets, as the master may conduct hours upon hours of "reviews" of the work. keep in mind that often all that the master has left for the minions has been a noxious brew of abstract archispeak, ambiguous sketches, and half-baked concepts that themselves get communicated halfway. the primary design method becomes negative reinforcement and editing that often takes an extreme toll in terms of rework and wasted effort. then the master jets off again.
for this, the minion gets low pay, often threadbare resources (from what i've heard, eisenman's 8.5x11 rule is true), and little or no real management. but alas, the minion also gets a goldplated name on that resume, which not only helps in the interview room for another job but also at the local architecture school (when interviewing for that faculty position) and ultimately when interviewing with clients. so i would, in the end, argue that the minion is not underpaid. there is an extreme benefit in prestige -- whether it's right or not -- that is conferred by slaving away at the starchitect's office. what the minion is doing, is they are essentially getting paid in scrip which can only be redeemed later.
- "I think young graduates who have a sensitivity to design but who enjoy producing the documentation needed to execute that design have a rosy future. I could use 2 or 3 of those in my practice right now and gladly would pay a premium to bring them on board"
Personally, I count myself as one of these. I admire the design superstars but I also pride myself on becoming as adept as possiblle in knowing how to actually compose and document the construction process.
What an informative post. I have always wondered what it would be like to work for a celebrity architect, and you have drawn a very clear picture of what I had suspected for a long time.
One thing really bothers me though-some famous (and not so famous) architects are obsessed with letting the world know it's THEIR building, it's a MR. JOHN A. ARCHITECT building, not a John A. Architect + Associates building. I think of all the folks who did all the dirty work to get the building designed and built while Mr. John A. Architect takes all the credit, and it irks me.
I was in a workshop as a student with Madelon Vriesendorp and she shed some light on starchitect business models. She conceded that at certain times a project that loses money on architectural services can be profitable in publication.
There are a myriad of ways to fund a firm, and in the end it is up to each of us to find the means to do what we wish to do with our lives.
I have no doubt that work has measureless value to some and none to others.
I fall into the category of working class kids that have to earn a paycheck during their first few years. Anybody who thinks borrowing even more money after school is a good idea probably didn't need to borrow any money ever, and isn't earning their own now. A solid financial rule is that the only person who is going to take care of you outside of family is you, and no matter how great your resume, you won't earn money as an employee ANYWHERE to bail yourself out of debt. This paragraph is a warning from a sensible bookkeeper's son to anybody with delusions that an extra ten G's in salary 10 or 20 years down the road is going to pay the built up interest from living off credit cards for 2 or 3 years in New York, LA, Paris, or London. That said, 30K will go a long way if you make it. You're doing better than a lot of 20-somethings in those places.
There is no doubt that starchitect firm culture spreads to the masses. I work for a large design focused firm that mostly replicates and waters down the ideas of famous architects. The management uses the ambitions of its relatively young staff in the same way as their boutique muses, and carries comparative egos.
I choose to work where I am to learn what I want to learn and have a desireable future here if I suck it up and hang with it for 10 or 20 years. I can also go to work for other business oriented firms that covet this firms watered down but comparatively powerful design and high profitability. Such is the corporate appeal.
Conversely, I think I'd find real happiness at an office that let me give love to some work and develop it for more than a few hours before pitching it, and then continuing to develop it after its been sold before tossing it to a production house. Thus, I crank a lot of PS and 3dStudio, while what I really crave is craftsmanship.
I haven't found the perfect job yet. I don't want to be a paper architect. I don't want to be a production architect. I don't want to be a corporate design hack either, but the days of working for an old-man architect as fairly kempt apprentice and then growing into a competent well-rounded professional architect are for the most part dead unless I build that culture in an office for myself.
Why are young architects so nasty with each other as they find their way. The world is not black and white and neither is what we do. Just go forth and create to the end of whatever limits by which you're currently constrained.
clerestory strip™, but isn't true that people that work for these celebrity architects are able to use the work in their portfolios? In that case, architecture is no different than politics, sports or a million other categories of history. Famous people get credit for changing the world and so many people accept it and propel the problem. I think that the real issue that you are getting at is more of a personal choice regarding where you work. If you interview at a famous architecture firm, you know what you are getting yourself into (w/ respect to receiving no credit). But the real problem is that the support staff of star architects should recieve higher pay than "less famous" work at other firms, and it does not always happen that way. That seems to be messed up in so many ways. A person performing support staff for famous architects should be paid more than support staff for strip mall architects and it is not always true.
like 21Ronin said, why would workers for strip mall architects get paid more than workers for a lot of famous architects? Because either the famous architect had to ask for very low fees so they could even get their hands on a project, or they get enough fee to do a stripmall like building but decide to make it like a thesis project.
i think architects who want to become stararchitects have a responsibility to first figure out how they can get their clients to pay for all the time they will spend on a project before they go do it. because otherwise they'll just do it by making people work for nothing.
quizzical, it's never so simple. Read ddquick's comments above about the business models in these offices. The currency that staff is helping produce here is in the form of publishable images, that then go out in the world and feed the reputation economy of the principal as fodder for lectures, books and magazines. This creates value in a real, albeit indirect way, a way that doesn't show up as billable hours.
The irony is again that it's a closed loop, as the primary consumers of those images, books, magazines, and lectures are the students themselves, the next generation of entry level employees.
to be fair the system is different in europe and an intern in most european countries means a student, not a graduated (which means in germany "licenced" from what i remember) architect. same for OMA, etc etc. germany has also been suffering for some time from a very harsh employment climate for achitects, where even the most talented students found it hard to get a job, so competition plays a big role in what offices do there in comparison to north america.
i know a few starchitects who are very careful about pursuing PR, and take every opportunity to promote themselves, but as investment of time and money i don't think they do so much of...cuz lets face it, PR aimed at students doesn't bring in clients or jobs - and starchitects are not in general stupid people when it comes to business. i know one in particular who lets the pr come to him but spends a lot of time on wooing his clients and making projects happen, which includes overseeing competitions to bringing together investors to make real a new project he wants to do...some, maybe even most, starchitects live in the real world and know where the bread is buttered...these things seem trivial when you are a student and maybe don't appear on the radar when young but trust me the seeking of work through politics and banker-meetings, socialising, golfing, whatever, are as much a part of the world of the starchitect as for any other...PR is just a backup to all that, and if you are a starchitect the chances are you will not need to do very much on your own dime. when el croquis is coming to you asking for material to do a monograph why bother making one yourself? that's my take anyway.
...not sure about New York, but not all starchitects pay poorly, or are asses. my partner spent a year with maki fumihiko and says he was fairly paid for his starting position. mind you he already had a m.arch and had experience - and was doing his phd with maki's protoge, so maybe it was special circumstances...but i didn't get that impression. mostly it sounds like maki is just a nice guy who values his staff. something we should all aim for.
I stopped reading everyone's comments half way down the page, so forgive me if I'm being repetitive.
I thought the input of a landscape architect (me) might be a change of pace. Maybe it will lighten the mood...
I graduated in May and now have a job as a land. arch. at a civil eng. firm (pretty large) in the suburbs of philly. I find it interesting to look at the salary poll, because I make more than a lot of architects with a couple years experience and I don't know why. My friends that work in NYC and north jersey are making even more than me. I don't know why we make more than architects (or so it seems), when we seem to be valued less in the overall design continuum.
Anyway-I interviewed at about 12 places this summer-everywhere from small, ecological, 2 person design firms to places such as Olin. What I've found is that places that do the most boring work (big box stores) pay the best because the always have a steady flow of work. This also allows these places to pick up small, interesting jobs that they don't necessarily profit on, but are good for exposure. When I interviewed at Olin, they said they'd rather have someone with a few years experience from a multi-disc. firm working for them. Their employees don't have enough varied experience-most have problems passing the LARE. <---that's from the mouth of someone at the firm. From what it seems, in my field, the more popular firms seem to be a good resume booster. Your experience is limited. However, the pay isn't THAT MUCH less. On the flip side, working in a multi-disc office, in a year or two I'll be running my own projects and have a really good understanding of grading and technical aspects as well as the process of developing a site. The reality is...that's where the work is, not so much in those cool urban plaza that pop up every few years.
SO...thats my two cents. I'll go back to plopping trees on this plan in CAD.
at the big name firms I mentioned before: Olin, MVVA, etc..
they work you to the bone. A lot of people can handle a couple of years there and thats it.
I work 40 hours a week.
pay at famous firms around new york
Great posts, Jump.
The point I was trying to make above is that working for a starchitect for low pay at 25 yrs old could be the very best thing you could do for your career and future earning potential.
I frankly think it's shortsighted to worry straight out of college or grad school about how high a salary you can get—particularly if that high salary is at a crap firm. Do the thing that will most benefit your CAREER (not your bank account) five or ten years from that point. Worry about salary at 35 -- at 25, do something you're passionate about. Careers are long. You'll have time to make money in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
The other thing about working for a starchitect who's in the public eye is that it continues to pay off well after you leave. Say you worked for OMA for a year back in 1989. The fact that Rem has won the Pritzker, published huge books, and has done massive projects around the world since then is STILL PAYING YOU NOW, in 2007. The more fame Rem gets, the more your own standing grows, and only because you worked for him 20 years ago.
agreed, dammson.
marlowe put it well. good design shouldn't be subsidized by paying poverty wages to employees. if someone does that it means they're not particularly good because they cannot convince people their design deserves more fee so they can pay their people.
vado retro i think has it wrong though. that again is the design of a firm or famous architect who cannot convince the client of the worth of their work and models and things they produce. stararchitects that clients actually really will pay for will have every piece of basswood, print out, and photograph charged to the client. because the client understands what they produce will be great and worthwhile for them. if a stararchitect isn't able to do that they haven't yet convinced the world their architecture contributes something extra to the client.
if someone is thinking the client isn't the only judge of the quality and value of architecture, read some previous posts.
jump's point that the stararchitects connections do pay off i'm not disputing. ivy league educations may also pay off. i'm not looking at this as a sour grape or anything. but the point i'm trying to make in this thread is that if a stararchitect cannot pay normal wages it's a sign that they are not good or the world does not see the value in what they are doing, only academia has made them a star.
this i think is different in some other arts. like a filmmaker who makes great films but is never able to make it huge and pay their crew anything is different. a filmmaker's goal may be to make something that they themselves consider interesting and they don't have to please anyone else. some of may think they are the greatest filmmaker and that's fine with something like film.
an architect however is being commissioned by a client and so they're work should really be judge differently. if the client doesn't pay extra for it, and architects cannot pay their employees any more than poverty wages, then obviously the client is not impressed by their work. the architect may go on and design beyond their means anyway but they are just satisfying themselves and the critics, not their client.
so architects who have built a great name for themselves but have payed poorly or are still paying poorly after they are famous are engaging in some artistic masturbation.
if you're going to do that just keep it in the realm of art where you're not going to have to hire slaves to realize your vision
although i agree with the general trend being posted here, there is always another way of looking at things; i still don't find any other reason for reknowed architects to hire people at low or no pay, except for the fact that they can do that, and save some money; and I personally don't think that's a good thing;
but then again, it's just my personal view; i've always tried to work for offices that have exposed me to great knowledge, quality projects, professional growth, and fair pay;
so, starchitects don't get the chance to hire me...their loss, right?!
there's nothing wrong with architecture being artistic masturbation and an architect only being well-recognized among academia. that architect just has to be okay with rarely finding clients and thus keeping architecture as an autonomous art.
svp, my sexuality has nothing to do with this, and i am not not btw.
gay :)
svp = syp,
sorry, one too many drinks already tonight.
as a general rule, prices are determined by some odd combination of quality and scarcity. for the most part, quality is subjective. scarcity is not all that subjective .
clients tend to be willing to pay more for design services when they perceive the service will offer either extraordinarily high quality - or uniqueness - or both. however, when clients only need, or want, the more common or prosaic, they tend to pay commodity prices.
firms operate the same way -- when high-quality talent is scarce, firms will pay higher and higher wages, provided they really need such talent to run their firms. not every firm really needs "high quality talent"
on the other hand, when high-quality talent is falling all over itself to obtain a position with the starchitect-du-jour, there's not much of a floor under the compensation that firm needs to pay.
moreover, when there's a lot of talent running around, but such talent doesn't offer much quality (due to lack of real world technical experience, say) then there's additional downward pressure on wages.
it's all about "supply and demand" baby!
so basically you're sayin that half the schools should be shut down to decrease supply?
actually vado, there's considerable evidence to suggest that there's going to be a shortage of architects in the US over the next 15 years if the pace of work continues as it has the past 5-6 years (which, in my view, is a pretty big "if")
however, my belief is that the main problem is not so much numbers of graduates but rather what those graduates are able (or willing) to do in an office. the shortage referenced above probably is not related to design talent, but more likely related to production.
because of the focus of schools over the past two decades, most grads aspire only seem to be the next REM or ZAHA -- not so much the next Head of CDs at SOM.
grads who can't find fulfillment as designers and who are confronted by a future primarily focused on the technical or business side of practice easily get disillusioned and head off into other endeavors.
personally, I think young graduates who have a sensitivity to design but who enjoy producing the documentation needed to execute that design have a rosy future. I could use 2 or 3 of those in my practice right now and gladly would pay a premium to bring them on board.
It's ok, p2an.
I agree with quizzical with respect to the idea that everyone thinks they are going to be a design genius. The fact is that there is a creative side of architecture which is limited to very few people and then there are a lot of people that do the more technical work in order to produce someone else's design. I would say that the US is trying to catch up to architects in Europe. In Europe, they basically have architectural engineers and design architects. In New York (Design Architect/Architect of Record), this distinction is very strong as well, but it is not so strong in other areas of the country. Another problem is eventhough there are many people that fall on the side of architectural engineer (and will not admit it), they think they are going to be the creative architectural genius that is so rare.
To me it sounds like there should be people that specialize in different phases of projects (pre-design, SD, DD, etc). Or is that too simplistic?
i specialize in BN
every architect has their own design process and flow. some are way, way more inefficient than others. we as architects subscribe to the myth of the master architect as sole designer -- even though we work in a much different reality every day.
from my (second-hand) experience, a typical "starchitect" might be traveling half the time: for work, for academic appointments, and/or for copious amounts of r&r. meanwhile, the back office is trying desperately to make a real building and meet real deadlines while simultaneously not trying to contradict or overrule the design genius of their employer(s).
communication comes either via e-mail or phone -- or many times, not at all, as the starchitect is living inside their own head and oftentimes cannot bother to even tell the office where they're going.
when the odd day or two comes where the master is back in the office, the stress level skyrockets, as the master may conduct hours upon hours of "reviews" of the work. keep in mind that often all that the master has left for the minions has been a noxious brew of abstract archispeak, ambiguous sketches, and half-baked concepts that themselves get communicated halfway. the primary design method becomes negative reinforcement and editing that often takes an extreme toll in terms of rework and wasted effort. then the master jets off again.
for this, the minion gets low pay, often threadbare resources (from what i've heard, eisenman's 8.5x11 rule is true), and little or no real management. but alas, the minion also gets a goldplated name on that resume, which not only helps in the interview room for another job but also at the local architecture school (when interviewing for that faculty position) and ultimately when interviewing with clients. so i would, in the end, argue that the minion is not underpaid. there is an extreme benefit in prestige -- whether it's right or not -- that is conferred by slaving away at the starchitect's office. what the minion is doing, is they are essentially getting paid in scrip which can only be redeemed later.
- "I think young graduates who have a sensitivity to design but who enjoy producing the documentation needed to execute that design have a rosy future. I could use 2 or 3 of those in my practice right now and gladly would pay a premium to bring them on board"
Personally, I count myself as one of these. I admire the design superstars but I also pride myself on becoming as adept as possiblle in knowing how to actually compose and document the construction process.
Hey ochona,
What an informative post. I have always wondered what it would be like to work for a celebrity architect, and you have drawn a very clear picture of what I had suspected for a long time.
One thing really bothers me though-some famous (and not so famous) architects are obsessed with letting the world know it's THEIR building, it's a MR. JOHN A. ARCHITECT building, not a John A. Architect + Associates building. I think of all the folks who did all the dirty work to get the building designed and built while Mr. John A. Architect takes all the credit, and it irks me.
I was in a workshop as a student with Madelon Vriesendorp and she shed some light on starchitect business models. She conceded that at certain times a project that loses money on architectural services can be profitable in publication.
There are a myriad of ways to fund a firm, and in the end it is up to each of us to find the means to do what we wish to do with our lives.
I have no doubt that work has measureless value to some and none to others.
I fall into the category of working class kids that have to earn a paycheck during their first few years. Anybody who thinks borrowing even more money after school is a good idea probably didn't need to borrow any money ever, and isn't earning their own now. A solid financial rule is that the only person who is going to take care of you outside of family is you, and no matter how great your resume, you won't earn money as an employee ANYWHERE to bail yourself out of debt. This paragraph is a warning from a sensible bookkeeper's son to anybody with delusions that an extra ten G's in salary 10 or 20 years down the road is going to pay the built up interest from living off credit cards for 2 or 3 years in New York, LA, Paris, or London. That said, 30K will go a long way if you make it. You're doing better than a lot of 20-somethings in those places.
There is no doubt that starchitect firm culture spreads to the masses. I work for a large design focused firm that mostly replicates and waters down the ideas of famous architects. The management uses the ambitions of its relatively young staff in the same way as their boutique muses, and carries comparative egos.
I choose to work where I am to learn what I want to learn and have a desireable future here if I suck it up and hang with it for 10 or 20 years. I can also go to work for other business oriented firms that covet this firms watered down but comparatively powerful design and high profitability. Such is the corporate appeal.
Conversely, I think I'd find real happiness at an office that let me give love to some work and develop it for more than a few hours before pitching it, and then continuing to develop it after its been sold before tossing it to a production house. Thus, I crank a lot of PS and 3dStudio, while what I really crave is craftsmanship.
I haven't found the perfect job yet. I don't want to be a paper architect. I don't want to be a production architect. I don't want to be a corporate design hack either, but the days of working for an old-man architect as fairly kempt apprentice and then growing into a competent well-rounded professional architect are for the most part dead unless I build that culture in an office for myself.
Why are young architects so nasty with each other as they find their way. The world is not black and white and neither is what we do. Just go forth and create to the end of whatever limits by which you're currently constrained.
clerestory strip™, but isn't true that people that work for these celebrity architects are able to use the work in their portfolios? In that case, architecture is no different than politics, sports or a million other categories of history. Famous people get credit for changing the world and so many people accept it and propel the problem. I think that the real issue that you are getting at is more of a personal choice regarding where you work. If you interview at a famous architecture firm, you know what you are getting yourself into (w/ respect to receiving no credit). But the real problem is that the support staff of star architects should recieve higher pay than "less famous" work at other firms, and it does not always happen that way. That seems to be messed up in so many ways. A person performing support staff for famous architects should be paid more than support staff for strip mall architects and it is not always true.
ochona pretty much nailed it.
I'm pretty easy to outdress. :( I sprung for my first pair of $80 jeans a few weeks ago tho!
doh! wrong thread. sry.
like 21Ronin said, why would workers for strip mall architects get paid more than workers for a lot of famous architects? Because either the famous architect had to ask for very low fees so they could even get their hands on a project, or they get enough fee to do a stripmall like building but decide to make it like a thesis project.
i think architects who want to become stararchitects have a responsibility to first figure out how they can get their clients to pay for all the time they will spend on a project before they go do it. because otherwise they'll just do it by making people work for nothing.
- while you may not like the answer, the simple answer is that "workers for strip mall architects" generate more fee dollars per hour of direct labor.
at it's most basic economic level, this is a measure of productivity and it determines what a design firm can pay for labor.
I'm not saying it's either fair or the way it should be, but I do believe it is that way it is.
quizzical, it's never so simple. Read ddquick's comments above about the business models in these offices. The currency that staff is helping produce here is in the form of publishable images, that then go out in the world and feed the reputation economy of the principal as fodder for lectures, books and magazines. This creates value in a real, albeit indirect way, a way that doesn't show up as billable hours.
The irony is again that it's a closed loop, as the primary consumers of those images, books, magazines, and lectures are the students themselves, the next generation of entry level employees.
meta - barkow?
to be fair the system is different in europe and an intern in most european countries means a student, not a graduated (which means in germany "licenced" from what i remember) architect. same for OMA, etc etc. germany has also been suffering for some time from a very harsh employment climate for achitects, where even the most talented students found it hard to get a job, so competition plays a big role in what offices do there in comparison to north america.
i know a few starchitects who are very careful about pursuing PR, and take every opportunity to promote themselves, but as investment of time and money i don't think they do so much of...cuz lets face it, PR aimed at students doesn't bring in clients or jobs - and starchitects are not in general stupid people when it comes to business. i know one in particular who lets the pr come to him but spends a lot of time on wooing his clients and making projects happen, which includes overseeing competitions to bringing together investors to make real a new project he wants to do...some, maybe even most, starchitects live in the real world and know where the bread is buttered...these things seem trivial when you are a student and maybe don't appear on the radar when young but trust me the seeking of work through politics and banker-meetings, socialising, golfing, whatever, are as much a part of the world of the starchitect as for any other...PR is just a backup to all that, and if you are a starchitect the chances are you will not need to do very much on your own dime. when el croquis is coming to you asking for material to do a monograph why bother making one yourself? that's my take anyway.
...not sure about New York, but not all starchitects pay poorly, or are asses. my partner spent a year with maki fumihiko and says he was fairly paid for his starting position. mind you he already had a m.arch and had experience - and was doing his phd with maki's protoge, so maybe it was special circumstances...but i didn't get that impression. mostly it sounds like maki is just a nice guy who values his staff. something we should all aim for.
I stopped reading everyone's comments half way down the page, so forgive me if I'm being repetitive.
I thought the input of a landscape architect (me) might be a change of pace. Maybe it will lighten the mood...
I graduated in May and now have a job as a land. arch. at a civil eng. firm (pretty large) in the suburbs of philly. I find it interesting to look at the salary poll, because I make more than a lot of architects with a couple years experience and I don't know why. My friends that work in NYC and north jersey are making even more than me. I don't know why we make more than architects (or so it seems), when we seem to be valued less in the overall design continuum.
Anyway-I interviewed at about 12 places this summer-everywhere from small, ecological, 2 person design firms to places such as Olin. What I've found is that places that do the most boring work (big box stores) pay the best because the always have a steady flow of work. This also allows these places to pick up small, interesting jobs that they don't necessarily profit on, but are good for exposure. When I interviewed at Olin, they said they'd rather have someone with a few years experience from a multi-disc. firm working for them. Their employees don't have enough varied experience-most have problems passing the LARE. <---that's from the mouth of someone at the firm. From what it seems, in my field, the more popular firms seem to be a good resume booster. Your experience is limited. However, the pay isn't THAT MUCH less. On the flip side, working in a multi-disc office, in a year or two I'll be running my own projects and have a really good understanding of grading and technical aspects as well as the process of developing a site. The reality is...that's where the work is, not so much in those cool urban plaza that pop up every few years.
SO...thats my two cents. I'll go back to plopping trees on this plan in CAD.
lets also not forget....
at the big name firms I mentioned before: Olin, MVVA, etc..
they work you to the bone. A lot of people can handle a couple of years there and thats it.
I work 40 hours a week.
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