The following are quotes from the research I have been doing over the past few months. These words help start to describe architectural practice in the 21st century from a variety of points of view.

Architecture is said to be "the Mother of the Arts," the quintessential social art, indeed as nothing but social – it is produced to shelter human activity and to express its significance; it is the backdrop against which the drama of everyday life is unavoidably played out, constraining and shaping possible social interactions. What is called social architecture is the practice of architecture as an instrument for progressive social change?..

Ward, Anthony "The Suppression of the Social in Design: Architecture as War." Reconstructing Architecture: 27

..only 20 percent of the total built output in developed societies is subject to the advice of the profession, so that the greater part of the man-made environment escapes our creative intervention?

Frampton, Kenneth. "Reflections on the Autonomy of Architecture: A Critique of Contemporary Production." Out of Site: 17.

As individuals, most American architects sincerely assert that they are deeply concerned about issues of social and economic justice. Yet, over the past twenty years, as a profession they have steadily moved away from engagement with any social issues, even those that fall within their realm of professional competence, such as homelessness, the growing crisis in affordable and appropriate housing, the loss of environmental quality, and the challenge posed by traffic-choked, increasingly unmanageable urban areas.

Crawford, Margaret. "Can Architects be Socially Responsible?" Out of Site: 27

Given the competition between a relatively large number of architectural firms for a limited number of projects, the market economy has created unprecedented demand for image differentiation within the profession itself. At least at the highest levels of practice, uniqueness is a prerequisite for survival. Since the core service performed by all architects is essentially the same, differentiation must be achieved in the secondary, formal realm. ..Further, certain architects become identified with the special features that often appear in their work, and, just as automobiles carry the brand name of their maker, so too do many self-consciously made buildings.

Kieran, Stephen. "The Architecture of Plenty: Theory and Design in the Marketing Age." From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View:14

The ground on which building professionals do pose a challenge to architects is in taking over functions of management and supervision before, during, and following construction, functions that architects often have defined as their responsibility. In so doing, the building professionals inevitably diminish the total volume of work for architects compared to what it would be otherwise.

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 67

The growing competition between architects and other building and design professionals is now matched by growing competitiveness among architects and architectural firms themselves. ...The trend is visible in the private sector..Competition has also increased in the public sector

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 70

.. the federal government is the largest single client for buildings in the nation...Furthermore, most government buildings are literally public buildings, open for use by citizens and highly visible?

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 86

Since the late 1970s, we have seen the establishment of major international awards for architecture, which for the first time are made by groups and foundations independent of the professional associations. The most important of these is the Pritzker Prize, which is awarded for achievement in architecture as a fine art.

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 92

The emergence of a mass public for the architecture culture is a phenomenon about whose benefits professionals will disagree. Everyone favors the attention that is lavished on architecture, which is widely believed will assist in lifting the social position and prestige of the architect. But for some professionals the development of an audience disposed to consume architecture apart from the experience of building is linked to an excessive emphasis on the scenographic as distinguished from the steretomic and tectonic aspects of architecture. In turn, some critics believe, this reinforces the image of the architect as a decorator rather than as a professional competent to deal with the pragmatic aspects of building, and thus accentuates, rather than revises, the direction in which practice is moving.

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 95

Compared, say to physicians or lawyers, architects are in a weaker position to generate demand for their services. They have nowhere near the authority over the building industry that physicians enjoy in the medical care system; and they do not have as much influence over building rules and decisions as lawyers can exert through the courts and the legislative system. ..Perhaps the absence of measures by architects to restrict enrollment and the limited control they are able to impose on forces influencing the demand for services, are connected events.

From Gutman, Robert Architectural Practice: A Critical View: 98

..the profession (by definition) claims to serve society. This implies a moral obligation, and confers a disengaged status, which encourages the emancipation of the professional from untoward influences of the marketplace.
We have moral responsibilities by definition as being professionals-therefore as long as we are considered professional by the government we must uphold those duties.

Ferris, Roger Introduction from: Saunders, William S. Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties: 9

..the reality is that most people do not think about architects or architecture very much, if at all.

Saint, Andrew, "Architecture as Image: Can We Rein in this New Beast?" from: Saunders, William S. Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties: 12

Alas, many who emerge from school find a marketplace that is not at all what they expected it to be. Their status is low, their chances of designing something satisfying are slim, and their earnings stand scant prospect of being commensurate with the length of their training.

Saint, Andrew, "Architecture as Image: Can We Rein in this New Beast?" from: Saunders, William S. Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties: 17

Once upon a time, long ago (which is to say, until sometime in the 1970s), the practice of design was a subtractive process, in which the architect was in charge of the whole ball of wax, peeling off pieces to give to consultants and contractors. Now it is additive, and the architect's role is only one of many small bits assembled along the way by any number of construction coordinators.

Padjen, Elizabeth, "The Shaping of Architectural Practice" from: Saunders, William S. Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties: 27

The majority of the semiotic analysis of architectural production of signs tends to discuss architecture as an art or as a science overlooking the fact that architecture is above all a profession.

Frascari, Marco. "Professional Use of Signs in Architecture"J.A.E Winter 1982: 16

"Nobody feels permanent," he says. There's a lot of disillusionment.The big question that Clark says he and others ask themselves is: "How can we become indispensable?"

Langdon, Phillip. "Faces of a Downsized Profession" Progressive Architecture June 1995: 79

Despite the elitist labeling that has been traditionally associated with the profession, an unprecedented public interest and accessibility to architecture has emerged in recent years. While the population of the province has barely increased in the last decade, the number of registered architects has nearly doubled. (1980s, Quebec)...One is just as likely to find House and Garden in the front row of the magazine rack as People and Time.

Poddubiuk, Mark "Beyond Optimism and Nostalgia: Some Notes on the Next Generation." ARQ: Architecture/ Quebec August 1988: 22

Comparative average annual salaries for various professions (1995 figures)
ProfessionAnnual Salary
Physicians$74,000
Dentists$73,300
Lawyers$59,400
Chiropractors$57,600
Psychologists$53,600
Pharmacists$49,200
Civil Engineers$47,700
Architects$45,500
Teachers$43,600
Social Workers$40,100

From Human Resources Development Corporation's Job Future program
Polo, Marco "Practice: Small Change" Canadian Architect November 1999: 38

The subject stayed the same, only the directors changed. Here what mattered was no longer what happened in the individual sectors, but only who was responsible for them. This was an extremely important shift of attention.

Steiner, Dietmar. "Architecture as Spectacle" Lotus International 1991, no. 70: 71-72

But even international awards like the "Pritzker," the "Reynolds," or more recently the "Mies van der Rohe" prize created by the European Community, serve exclusively to preserve the internal workings of a society that feels itself to be a closed circle.

Steiner, Dietmar. "Architecture as Spectacle" Lotus International 1991, no. 70: 73

In short one cannot live in a house that nobody wants to do but admire, one cannot buy anything in a building that people only want to visit, and one cannot exhibit works of art in a building of which only the outer covering is "sacred." Architecture cannot be set free from its practical function.

Steiner, Dietmar. "Architecture as Spectacle" Lotus International 1991, no. 70: 77

Today the weight of relentless consumption lies heavy on ordinary architecture, from single-family houses to big-box stores to office parks. Buildings are a special type of commodity. Like other products, they are bought and sold, advertised and merchandised, within the consumer marketplace.

Schwartzer, Mitchell. "The Spectacle of Ordinary Building" Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2000

Ordinary buildings are increasingly tied to a ruthless competitive system of consumption. For one thing, their design is driven by market research and financially rationalized construction processes; as a result, buildings are cheaper, larger, more comfortable and convenient.

Schwartzer, Mitchell. "The Spectacle of Ordinary Building" Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2000

Today's sought-after architects tend to be individual stars, designing high-profile projects as linchpins for cultural or leisure-time development schemes. Their works do not produce any real consensus among thoughtful architects, the kind of consensus that then might influence the broader building culture.

Schwartzer, Mitchell. "The Spectacle of Ordinary Building" Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2000

Will future architectural creativity, apart from matters of efficiency and comfort, be encouraged only by the increasingly few enlightened public, institutional, or business clients, and by wealthy patrons? Or can architects respond in other ways to an American built landscape shaped by the spectacle of the commodity?

Schwartzer, Mitchell. "The Spectacle of Ordinary Building" Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2000

For too long, the profession has operated according to an outmoded Renaissance vision of design as orchestrated by the architect-creator. Adhering to this model will only marginalize further the contributions of the architectural profession.

Schwartzer, Mitchell. "The Spectacle of Ordinary Building" Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2000

To think about modern architecture must be to pass back and forth between the question of space and the question of representation. Indeed, it will be necessary to think of architecture as a system of representation, or rather a series of overlapping systems of representation. This does not mean abandoning the traditional architectural object, the building. In the end, it means looking at it much more closely than before, but also in a different way. The building should be understood in the same terms as drawings, photographs, writing, films, and advertisements; not only because these are the media in which more often we encounter it, but because the building is a mechanism of representation in its own right. The building is after all, a "construction," in all senses of the word.

Colomina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media: 14