The April issue of A&B is devoted to the conditions for practicing the architectural profession. On our portal, as part of the series entitled "The profession of an architect" we continue the conversation started on the pages of moodboard - we ask what it means today to be an architect and what are the conditions for practicing this profession, and we illustrate the statements with unrealised office projects. Read what Jakub Szczę sny of studio SZCZ.COM.PL thinks on this subject.
Jakub Szczęsny
Photo: Bartek Warzecha
1 What does it mean to be an architect today?
For some time now, I have been seeing architecture more and more as a tool for orchestrating space and function to co-create our environment. Architecture is at best a baton rather than music created by orchestrating instruments, although we would like to see it, as a symphony, ba, even as poetry. Meanwhile (as my colleagues breaking housing for domestic developers will surely confirm), very often architecture is just a drum or a bandzino summoned to some larger set of instruments....
Occasionally, but very rarely, architecture designed by architects can spice up the experience of being in "ordinary construction" of anonymous pre-modern houses or temples with no name behind them.
2 What are the conditions for practicing architecture?
I try to use architectural tools only when I find it interesting or necessary. In Poland, the black hole of bureaucracy and the lack of mandatory minimum rates make the architectural profession more and more difficult to practice, but fortunately, I am interested in more and more dimensions of design that do not require constant analysis of regulations and treading the corridors of offices. A point of reference for me is Bernard Rudofsky and his criticism of being locked in the drawer of the professional sector that is architecture.
Jakub SZCZĘSNY
SZCZ.COM.PL
