I agree with your assessment of things as they are today, but I have great hope for the near future of our profession. Buildings, being the individually designed and essentially hand-built products that they are, tend to be the last (and longest lasting) statement of a period. The world is changing at an alarming pace and Architecture doesn’t know how to respond yet.

I believe that when economic upheavals subside and the technology-driven democratization of society settles in – we will have the capital and the tools to design great things again.

I blog about (and not entirely tongue-in-cheek) the “Next Golden Age of our Profession” – hold on. It’s coming!

The Architect's Dream, Thomas Cole, 1840

Here are some earlier full-post thoughts on the bright emerging future of Architecture:

|  Insight From A Blind Architect  |  Utopia Forever: Review and Preview  |

|  Under Construction (The Future of Architecture)  |  CC: Embrace the Change  |

An ongoing feature of Building Content is regularly posted items of curated content; information and stories from the best sources on the Internet. These examples of content curation will be easily recognized by the “CC:” prefix in their titles. Please read these for your own enjoyment or to incorporate, with proper citation, into your own blog.

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Please consider this a follow-up to my recent “Curated Content” post; CC: Cold Cruel Numbers.

A tip of the hat to Randy Deutsch, a tremendous content curator (and BIM expert!) in his own right, who Tweeted about this New York Times article last Sunday, Among the Wealthiest 1 Percent, Many Variations.

3.4% of Architects live in households in the top one percent income

NEW YORK TIMES - 1% CHART

 CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL CHART

Highlights of the article:

• 207,568 is the total number of Architects in this survey
• 6,973 Architects made the survey’s cut
• The numbers are are of those who “live in households the top 1%”

Related articles

• What percent you are in (flowingdata.com)
• Fun Fact of the Day: Lawyers and the One Percent (abovethelaw.com)
• NYT uses R to map the 1% (revolutionanalytics.com)
• CC: Cold Cruel Numbers (buildingcontent.highercontent.com)

Here is the January 2012 Architectural Blog Chat (#ABlogChat)

Thanks to curateDE.com for this formatted transcript:

Please leave a comment below about the type of content that would benefit or interest you most. Remember that “content” could be in the form of written articles, graphic images, audio podcasts or video recordings; it could originate from interviews, journals, lectures, or from a range of entertainment sources. Likely topics could include sustainability, media trends, policy issues and product reviews. The bottom line is that Building Content desires to “curate” the content that will best help you build your own blog.

Please return to Building Content often and look for these CC posts.

Utopia Forever: Visions of Architecture and Urbanism

The Globe and Mail’s architectural contributor, John Bentley Mays reviewed Utopia Forever: Visions of Architecture and Urbanism and titled his article “Architects Still Dare to Dream of Utopia”

Utopian visions do come from the realm of dreams and architects do tend to start out as dreamers. Utopia Forever apparently is a catalog of such dreams, from fanciful and futuristic sci-fi to hopeful and helpful environmentalism. It’s a book I’d be proud to own and display.

However, while peeking in on someone’s dreams is exciting (Inception, anyone?) we practicing architects must function within the current cultural and financial reality.

“The best thing about this book… is the news it brings us about men and women who are not afraid to think expansive thoughts.”

This evaluation by Mr. Mays validates my own “utopian vision”. Mine isn’t as grand in terms of construction as those in Utopia Forever, but I believe it’s beneficial impact is indeed expansive. It is a vision we can all share – and shape;

“The goal at Building Content is to develop a community of architectural bloggers who will usher in the next golden age of our profession.”

Let me elaborate. While I’m sure that Utopia Forever is an extraordinary book, I believe we need to get architectural ideas off book shelves and coffee tables and onto people’s screens. People understand doctors, lawyers and detectives, not so much from personal contact, but from movies and television. For presenting the potential and the passion of our profession, I believe stories about architects and their work would rival medical dramas, crime scene mysteries and court room procedurals. Let’s tell these stories!

Here’s one approach. I’m currently active at LinkedIn with screenwriters, cultivating relationships and sharing ideas about architecture. Authors are taught to “write what you know” and I’m there to help them know architecture. My stated goal there is to add a great fictional architect to the American culture.

The New Media affords opportunities for access, production and broadcast far beyond traditional Hollywood. Whether on television, in film, as independent webs-isodes, or even as mobile apps, there are means and methods available to us to promote the passion and potential of Architecture. Let’s tell these stories!

Friends, please continue to tell your story on your own professional blog – you’re doing a great job! Let your readers see a glimpse of Architecture’s next Golden Age!