
So
Jeanne Gang gave the keynote speech at UofI's latest architecture graduation. Of course, I'm no longer at the school, but I read the speech
here.
I can't help but feel that students at their graduation, ready for their first jobs, don't need more people giving them misty-eyed interpretations of the field of architecture. Yet, that's what Ms. Gang does. However, I agree with her highlights of architecture education as a producer of multifaceted people.
My friend, an architect and graduate of the UofI added these comments:
[Architecture] is a practice (at least in America and to a lesser extent in Asia) that is dominated by the money driven developers... very few of us get to work on projects that are not. ...Architects will become saviors of our built environment once the greater population finally realizes just how important architecture is to our physiological well-being, and our built and ecological environments, and force the developers of this world to adjust to what the architects believe is right as opposed to what the dollar says is right... but in our culture of consumerism, common sense is way ahead of architecture at this point...
Architecture is truly under-appreciated in America. I hope someday that may turn around. Until then, I'll sit on the engineering side of the coin.