We though that the magazine was flawed from the start but were willing to give it a chance. We also thought that really had it coming. They are the ones responsible for that horrible salary article a while back. This is great for people like us that like to criticize this shit but what other good does it do?
Has anyone seen the latest issue? The first couple issues had a few annoying pics of architects. I can take my occasional self-promotional horse shit but the latest issue is the worst. Every article, commentary, ad, you name it, is accompanied by a full-page photo of an architect or architects. It has become the GQ of architecture magazines. The poses are terrible too. It is like the word “ASSHOLE” should be scrawled beneath each picture.
The flaw of the magazine is that it is all about focusing on the architects not the architecture. Who the fuck cares about what architects wear or how they look or whether they are a nerd or not? Your buildings and designs should be your connection to people, not your picture in GQ. We are all for celebrating the newest, cool design to be done by someone but lets allow the architecture ego to be enlarged through that and not through you looking cool in a black suit. Besides, there are no hot chicks doing cool architecture so who would want to look at the photos. Could you imagine the next issue: Zaha Hahaha naked in a hot tub except for a couple of artistically placed bubbles? That’s the crescendo that magazine seems to be building towards and it’s just wrong.
Maybe this is the point of the magazine and why it is called "Architect" and not "Architecture - something". If so, then we think this point is all wrong. It not only exacerbates the problem we have with the image of the architect as the all-knowing savior but it simultaneously pushes the point that image is more important than anything else when it comes to architecture. Personally, we not only find this inaccurate but a disservice to what we do as a profession.
