(first published on 14 August 2012)
Free Architecture is architecture made for Free. Free architecture is made by free architects, by architects who works for free.
In fact, this is not a new idea. Most of the architects work most of their time for free. When they are young, they work as apprentices and interns; when they grow up, not only they work for free but they even invest huge amount of money on lost competition entries and phantom projects. In any international competition, for only one winning project (and one paid architect) there would be dozens and sometime hundreds of architectural offices who worked for free and very often even pay (collaborators, consultants, models, 3d animation, and that besides the admittance fees and the price paid for the program pdf file) for the privilege to work for free.
That may represent efforts of a much larger number of young people that over-worked themselves for months, days and nights, for the only sake of satisfying one's - not always their - ambition to be chosen to be paid for his work. In some cases, doing free architecture for lost competitions became a specialty of certain practices. Financially, sometimes the winners should not be envied neither, as the winning project only enables the office to lose more money for a longer period of time.
Free work is of course done massively on a daily basis in any private architectural practice in order to get new clients or to keep the old ones.
That may represent efforts of a much larger number of young people that over-worked themselves for months, days and nights, for the only sake of satisfying one's - not always their - ambition to be chosen to be paid for his work. In some cases, doing free architecture for lost competitions became a specialty of certain practices. Financially, sometimes the winners should not be envied neither, as the winning project only enables the office to lose more money for a longer period of time.
Free work is of course done massively on a daily basis in any private architectural practice in order to get new clients or to keep the old ones.
The actual economical regime of architecture is governed by the idea of an architectural paid practice but in reality enslaves so many talented professionals and make them work for free at the service of the ones who promise that they can afford to build (and therefore to make them work for free). Never in the history of architecture so many architects have been working so hard, doing so much unnecessary work for so few and sometimes even ill-interested people and very often for no-one. In other words, most of the architectural work that is being done today is done for nothing.
This had disastrous effects on the morality of the architect and on his position as a social actor. Hoping to be paid, he cannot speak for himself anymore nor for the public, but for the one who pays. An architect's word is today as trustworthy as that of a lawyer or a businessman. This regime has been corrupting the whole profession as a social body turning it into a vain, ridiculous star-system and is actually corrupting the whole environment all over the world, populating it with a mass of empty, expensive and useless "landmarks".
This regime has also decreased the number of people that are served today by architecture. If the architects work only for the few happy ones that can pay or that can say that they can pay, there would be a much greater number of people who even when they are in great need for architecture cannot afford to pay nor to promise to pay an architect and therefore will not be served by architecture. In fact, the vast majority of constructions on earth is done without architects. Today, architecture is a luxury.
The choice is simple: it is between doing architecture for nothing and doing architecture for free. If you can afford doing architecture for nothing, do architecture for free: Do architecture, do not take money.
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