Architecture As a Hybrid Profession

Hybrid organizations and professions are characterized by conflicting goals, which may cause tensions. For architects, such tensions are typically between art and market, and between ideal ideas and conceptions of design, and preferences and claims from clients/principals and others. Although market dependence is intrinsic in the role and history of the profession, this still represents tension for architects. When dealing with this tension, some architects are quite pragmatic and accept and adjust to prevailing conditions. Other architects are more uncompromising and insist that creativity requires freedom from external constraints. Particular architect “heroes” espouse autonomy and distance from the service part of the profession. This may seem like a paradox as architects more than most other professionals depend on, and have to adjust to, the power, wealth, favor and money of their clients.