The Site Map of Archsoc.com

People

• The hypocrisy of sustainable design. A lot of rich people want others to pay for their sins.
• Why architects don't like other people.
• Why architects dress differently. There's a lot of bowties out there. Here's why.
• Some thoughts on why architects take themselves too seriously. They really should get a sense of humour.
• The Eisenman file: Peter Eisenman copycat bully boy. Way back in the 1990's the noted American architect Peter Eisenman was hit by some stinging criticism from an academic. Bereft of any ideas himself, he stole a particularly childish rebuke lock-stock-and-barrel from his intellectual guru Jacques Derrida.
• Architecture is run by grumpy prima donnas.

Australian people

• The Seidler file: A look at why male architects just love tall buildings. We whack Harry Seidler as a typical architectural penis-waver.
• The Seidler file: How Harry tried to cajole a pig-loving publican.
• The Seidler file: Architectural aristocrat.
• The Seidler file: Glass-jaw bully.
• Our take on the Australian Architecture Association, followed by our explanation of why they are that way.
• The people's architect. Some thoughts on how affluent, intelligent and cultured people can delude themselves that they are one of the ‘people’.

Profession

• Updated data for 2009 Are architects disrespected? We look at how architects' incomes have fared over the past decades in the United States of America.
• Women in architecture: our speculations.
• BArch, MArch, DArch. Frank Lloyd Wright didn't have a university {college} degree. So why do North American architects now want you to get a doctoral degree to practise in the USA or Canada? The Aussie schools are also migrating to the masters qualification. We call it credential inflation.
• The profession wants all of the status, but none of the responsibility that comes with a university education.
• How to become a famous architect without building anything. If Zaha Hadid could do it, so can you.
• Queen of the arts. The architects' professional associations are world-class snobs. Some examples.
• The name of the architect. Architects shoot themselves in the head when they try to limit who can use the title, and Daniel Libeskind exemplifies why. We also have a swipe at those Nobel parvenus, the Pritzkers.
• Why the privileged find it easier to become a great architect. It's all a matter of class.
• Architecture as grand erections.
• Some concerns about the decline of the occupation of architecture.
• A few words about the legal regulation of architects.
• Americans love free markets. So does Dr Garry. But when it comes to the professions, the USA would not have much to learn from Joseph Stalin: eliminate competitors, monopolise, control, regulate. Check out why we think American architects are the world's last great socialists.
• A look at the current brouhaha between American architects and interior designers.
• On the coming crisis in the architecture profession.
• Architects take on the building designers.

The Australian profession

• The pompous halfwits at the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia think they know something. They don't.
• The New South Wales Architects Act 2003. This is a major step towards the rational reform of regulating architects in Australia. We welcome it.
• Are you looking to work as an architect in Australia? Our advice.
• A discussion of the investigation into the Australian Architects' Acts. You can also read excerpts from the hearings into the Architects Acts.
• Our pungent opinion about the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) and their minions.
• The RAIA rebrands itself for a bold new world.

Education

• British architecture academics piss themselves. The UK government wants to know where its money is going. The British architecture professors don't want to tell them.
• If you are interested in one of our least popular ideas, try why we think that architecture should not be taught in universities.
• How the internet made architecture students stupid.
• The mature age or adult student in architecture school. It can be fun, but also daunting.
• The easy life of the part-time academic {professor}.
• So, you want to study architecture? Some of your questions answered about getting into school, surviving it, and becoming a rich and famous architect.
• How happy are architecture students?
• How the schools brainwash their students, and why the students love it.
• How you can succeed in architecture school.
• Some ways to be a brilliant architectural academic.
• Architecture as a discipline. Does architecture have academic integrity?
• A history of architectural education.
• What we believe are rampant fallacies about architectural education.
• The very short life of the discipline of architectural science: killed by its own founder.

Rating the schools

• An introduction to our biennial ranking of the world's architecture schools as research institutions. The latest release is for 2009.
  • New Comparisons between the 2005 and 2009 rankings
  • 2009 ratings for the USA
  • 2009 ratings for the UK
  • 2009 ratings for Canada
  • 2009 ratings for Australia
  • 2009 ratings for South Africa
  • 2009 ratings for New Zealand, Eire, Hong Kong and Singapore
  • Rating the individual professors. For the first time, we provide information on every single academic in the architecture schools. Based on our 2009 survey data.
  • Updated for 2010 International comparisons
  • Our methodology
• Reactions to our ratings
  • University of New South Wales writes
  • RMIT University writes
  • Boston Architectural College (formerly Center) writes

Australian education

• Latest ARWU 2009 ratings added. Australia's best universities.
• Curious case of Monash university. A new school of architecture in Australia claims to be accredited. Other sources say it is not. We have received no response from Monash to our many queries.
• Studying at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). A critic's attempt to save the jobs of her chums didn't work, and even our own suggestion was ignored.
  • For a contrary view, read Mr Jason Fraser's critique of our article.
• Culling the Australian professors. Our plan to reform the architecture schools.
• Updated with 2009 data Their students rate the Australian architecture schools. We have a summary in chart form.
• Ranking Australia's architecture schools in research.
• Studying architecture at the University of South Australia. Inspired by one student's comments.
• Studying architecture at the School of Architecture at the University of Sydney. With much information from Dr Garry's many years there.
• The growing scandal of entrenched corruption at the highest levels of Australia's universities.

The theory

• Freakonomics is a wildly successful media enterprise, turning a dry-as-dust screw-the-poor economic church (rational action theory) into a sexy money-making machine that makes rich people feel good. As a solid Bourdivin student, we have our own take.
• Without a doubt, the most important work in architectural sociology in more than a generation is Garry's book The Favored Circle. We hate false modesty, don't you?
• The first in a series on the rhythms of architectural history.
• [pdf file] ‘Downclassing the Architect’. A paper invited by Harvard Design Magazine but not published by it. Dr Garry has no love of this journal, and no wish to write for it in the future. You can download the original submission. It isn't brilliant, but there is some quite useful stuff there, nonetheless, especially from Garry's research into the economics of architecture over the past thirty years.
• [pdf file] ‘The Invisible’: A paper published in Thresholds, the journal of MIT's Department of Architecture. You can download the original, longer, and much better version for free!

The rest

• Why computer-aided architectural design failed to live up to its hype.
• Is Dr Garry disrespected? He thinks others are using his work without attribution. So he's taking action.

Our ratbag file

• Ms ‘Leila Martin’, claiming to be associated with the University of South Australia, and using the monicker Lulusticks sent us a nasty email.
• Then the school of architecture at the University of South Australia threatened to suppress the Key Centre: because one of their own students whacked Dr Garry! Hey, you work it out. We still haven't.
• Here is our response to their threats.
• Rad vomits.
• A not-very-bright student wittles.
• A disgruntled ‘— Lafond’ writes that we have deceived him.
• Yet another interior designer berates us, completely misunderstanding our article.