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Eeing Ou Le Tories Fro the Heater of Ractice eeing oule tories fro the heater of ractice GEORGE BARNETT JOHNSTON Georgia Institute of Technology This paper describes an approach to the history of competitive bidding was decried as an evil, local customs frustrated architectural ractice that taes into account consensus about national norms, and the agency of the architect was unresoled tensions that still aide fro foratie unsettled law. Relations between and among architects, general contrac- eisodes in the rocess of rofessionaliation issuing tors, sub-contractors, and clients were ambiguous, unclear. Construction was often shoddy, a magnet for fire; and in journalistic tabloids and fro the rst uarter of the tentieth centur he novels of popular culture, the motivations of the building trades and pro- ongoing roect rooses to unac Th ndoo fessions were often portrayed in unflattering terms.2 of Architectural Practice rst ulished in as an index of controversies and disputes then at the fore. The increasing complexity and disputatiousness of the design and construction fields during this period is particularly noteworthy.3 Such t is suggested that aets to aeliorate those con- tensions precipitated the restructuring of basic relationships among icts hae onl roided roisional reedies and that the parties and propelled the systemization of office operating pro- ongoing shis in odels of architectural ractice are cedures out of the ad hoc local conventions that mostly prevailed. as indicatie of those unresoled tensions as the are Emergent legal, business, and administrative protocols were codified in reections of reolutioniing technologies the series of standardized contractual documents drafted by members of the American Institute of Architects and their construction indus- INTRODUCTION try counterparts; and in the period of 1917-1920, these efforts were The ongoing revolution in architectural practice cannot simply be further extended in the publication of the AIA’s very first Handbook of explained by the ascendancy of new design technologies. Dynamic Architectural Practice. relationships that intertwine public and private interests, academic and Over the intervening century, The Architects Handbook has expanded vocational knowledge, and dialectics of means and ends have long been its scope and grown in bulk in a perennial effort to encompass the ever- at work in shaping the destiny of architecture culture, both as discursive growing complexity of the design and construction industry and to chart field and material process. The archetypal actors on the stage of archi- the incrementally changing norms and conventions of practice. Yet in tectural production – owners, architects, builders – have ever been fluid that very first handbook from 1920 we can recognize a concerted effort characters, each redefining their own agency and identity with respect to ameliorate the stresses that were even then unsettling architectural to all the others in the shifting shadow-play of prevailing practices. New discourse and practice in a manner not unlike the disruptions we are digital information technologies may reveal or further mask the terms of now experiencing. Like today, the forces fomenting change were not these relationships, and they may accelerate or retard their transforma- merely technological, though the technological transformation of the tion; but instability in the historical framework of architectural practice construction industry in the aftermath of World War Inew materials, is arguably as much a precipitating cause of the digital dialectic as it is a national standards, manufacturing processes, distribution networks resultingeect . was certainly profound. Both in answer to those changes and calling A mere century ago, many of the defining traits of modern profession- them forth, a shifting order of responsibility within the construction alism that we take for granted today were only then beginning to take industry was being negotiated and contested. The old social hierarchies shape. The architecture profession in the United States back then was that had set rank and status among the principle actorsowners, build- a heterogeneous mix of socially positioned gentleman architects, office ers, architectswere being reshued by exigencies of capital and labor, apprenticed drafters, business-savvy labor contractors, self-assumed production and consumption, commerce and communication, knowl- designing builders, engineers, mechanics, and a small but growing edge and skill. New performance expectations were being set. number of academically polished designers often lacking adequate con- The conflicts driving reform of architecture practice a century ago may struction knowledge. By 1900, only one of the 45 U.S. states then existing seem like quaint relics from a receding past; yet, an effort to reconstruct had adopted architect registration laws,1 the role of the general contrac- some aspects of that change may be instructive for us today. The tools tor was still a novelty, general conditions of contracts were inconsistent, he esign of ractice Brooklyn Says, “Move to Detroit” 337 and technologies of architectural productioncompasses, contracts, At this point it occurred to me that I was engaged in writing a hand- capitalare all mutable. They are implicated as both causes and effects book of business administration; that it was entirely based on my of a whole network of social relations to which they give fleeting form. personal experience, and that it would be far better if it expressed The aim of this emerging field of study is to stoke historical consciousness the consensus of opinion of a number of men interested in such about architectural practice by mapping some of its terrain, by unrav- work. After discussing the matter…, I have determined to offer eling some of the knots of conflicting interest that once objectified as it to the Institute, since I believe that improved and extended as professional tools became subject to the same controversies they were alone the Institute can improve and extend it, the work will be of meant to mediate or defuse. The challenge is to see beyond architects’ great value to the profession. It will be of value to the young man own professional mythologies of dominance and control in order to rec- untrained in good business methods; it will be of value to the expe- ognize and better understand the unresolved and perhaps unresolvable rienced practitioner who looks after his own administrative detail, tensions at play even now in the pursuit of some new digitally mediated but whose work would be lightened by having forms suited to many social ideals. occasions and whose memory would be refreshed by following the sequence of events set down. It would be of service to architects MR. DAY’S HANDBOOK of large practice who have to delegate their administrative details In 1914, Philadelphia architect and former AIA President Frank Miles to others, who perhaps do not always fully realize the significance Day (1861-1918) assumed the chairmanship of the AIA’s Committee on of each act.6 Contracts and Specifications of which he had been a member since 1908. Day’s insight and proposal, that from the seeds of his own architectural Over preceding years, Day had been especially interested in matters per- firm’s office manual a consensual handbook of architectural practice taining to the establishment of a code of ethics, the conduct of design could be shaped, set in motion a series of discussions, deliberations, and competitions, competitive bidding procedures, and the standardization debates nationwide that would help propel the standardization of the of contracts between and among owners, architects, and builders. His terms and assumptions of American architectural practice. Day’s proj- aim as a progressive member of the profession’s self-selecting elite was ect for a “code of good practice” drew upon the network of connections to build up the profession, to elevate the architect’s status to its righul and associations that he had built across the country as president of the position alongside that of doctor or lawyer.4 nation’s premier professional organization of architects.7 First shaping a In a letter to the executive board of the AIA, Day described the changing draft document and then distributing it widely, he invited feedback that environment of his own firm that was requiring extra measures to ensure elicited a range of regional and often parochial viewpoints. The biases consistency and clarity of his office affairs in the face of an expanding and professional predispositions thus conveyed to him reveal some of practice over which it was increasingly difficult to exercise personal the anxieties besetting practitioners in those days: the bounds of the control: architect’s authority as owner’s agent, the emergence of the general con- tractor, changes in the architect’s relationship to the trades, the precision Of late it has been necessary for me to delegate to others a con- of specifications, the corrupting potential of the bid process, the calcu- siderable proportion of the administrative detail of this office, and lation of overhead and fees, virtues of the quantity survey system, the I have found that many procedures which seemed to me of an ele- architect’s role as final arbiter of the contract. Working alone with mod- mentary sort presented certain difficulties to those now in charge. I est support from his committee, Day received these written responses, therefore thought it advisable to prepare memoranda of procedure sifted them and endeavored to
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