Direction for Design
 (Continued from 11 Page)
 tectural symbols as such. I am not
 interested in an aristocracy of pre-
 cious buildings or an elite of creative
 designers. Both will exist and serve
 well the cause of progress; and critics
 more capable than I are available to
 evaluate the results. I am interested
 in a higher level of performance by
 a great many more architects produc-
 ing projects which become progres-
 sively more distinguishable as useful
 art. I am concerned for a genuineness
 which can produce honest work. I am
 concerned for a wedding of Philoso-
 phy and Method which is compre-
 hensible to the public and distin-
 guishable from the hocus-pocus
 which surrounds the so-called crea-
 tive process.
 I believe that architecture is suffi-
 ciently mature to be characterized by
 a coherent body of ideas, princi-
 ples and practices. I believe that a
 method may be taught by means of
 which philosophy can be put to work.
 Without philosophy and method
 clearly recognizable and broadly prac-
 ticed, our professionalism is an hol-
 low illusion. One can, I think, defend
 the contention that we are not yet a
 profession if the scope of our effec-
 tiveness is any measure, but rather
 we are struggling to evolve a profes-
 sion and the point at which we may
 say we have succeeded is the point
 at which the public really entrusts
 to us the shaping of physical environ-
 ment and with measurable distinc-
 tion we discharge that trust.
 I have spoken of the architects
retreat from greatness. Perhaps it is
better to call it a retreat from
responsibility.
 The Architect is heir to a great
tradition, be it in large measure a
myth. It is an aristocratic tradition
based upon the historic concept of
the master builder, enjoying enorm-
ous patronage and social and political
status and elevated to prominence
among his fellows. Sitting on the
right hand of the gods of ancient
Egypt, he was second only to the
Pharaoh. He was "Chief Architect,
Chief of Government, Prime Min-
ister, Chief Justice, Chief of the
Halls, of Karnak, Chief of all the
works of the King." So great was the
reverence for this exalted office that
the words Life, Prosperity, Health


which properly followed only the
name of the King, were sometimes
added to that of the Architect.
 From the Master Builder of An-
 tiquity, the Engineer-Inventor of the
 Renaissance, we are reduced in the
 public understanding to the "man
 who makes blueprints". And high
 school students are advised by their
 counselors to take mechanical draw-
 ing in preparation for entering archi-
 tectural school! Of course the master
 builder was an unusual individual
 and no profession of architecture
 existed or claimed to exist until
 modern times. However, we perpetu-
 ate the myth and give lip-service to
 the idea that we have inherited his
 prerogatives. I offer several explana-
 tions for what I term our retreat from
 greatness; they fit a pattern, a pat-
 tern of drastically altered relationship
Sof architect to social and political life
and to the size of the job to be done.
While kingdoms gave way to repub-
lics, and crafts gave way to industrial
revolution, and stone technology gave
way to steel technology and control
of wealth spread from the few to the
many, the architect specialized in
becoming a "professional man".
 While the demands upon his per-
 formance were increasing, he formal-
 ized his education in the Academy,
 out of the main stream of social and
 technical change and encouraged the
 separation between conception and
 planning on the one hand and execu-
 tion and construction on the other.
 In establishment of the professional
 role of man of service, he gave up
 the equally vital role of man of build-
 ing. This kind of half-man was per-
 haps adequate to the eclecticism of
 the 19th and early 20th century. He
 was most inadequate to cope with
 the explosion of new concepts, prob-
 lems and opportunities which
 followed.
 A new technology came, let us
admit from the engineers Roeb-
ling, Paxton and others and a new
esthetic came, from the cubist
painters and constructivist sculptors;
and the two are only nowbeginning
to meet. Missing still was a most
essential third element, a new hu-
manism which would remind us that
architecture was for man, for man
feeling, hearing, fearing, smelling,
touching and loving as well as seeing
- a new humanism which could put
structure and esthetics in proper


relationship to man, which could
assimilate the meaning of Freud and
of Thoreau when he wrote; "when
the farmer has got his house, he may
not be the richer but the poorer for
it; and it be the house that has got
him. But lo! men have become the
tools of their tools. The man who
independently plucked the fruits
when he was hungry is become a
farmer; and he who stood under a
tree for shelter, a housekeeper."
 Finally, while knowledge of the
 physical and social sciences expanded
 at a staggering rate, telling us things
 about man of which we formally only
 dreamed, architecture indulged itself
 in over-specialized education, dis-
 pensed too liberally by underquali-
 fied and underpaid teachers.
 So I say that the architect's retreat
 from greatness is his fiiluic.4,r.k
 in relation to the job to be done.
 Our willingness to claim new prero-
 gatives has exceeded our willingness
 to prepare for them. We have had
 to assume new areas of responsibility
 before we were ready to discharge
 them. We have in short, been too
 busy to be educated, too wise to need
 research, too arty to admit the engi-
 neer to our inner sanctum as a
 creative equal, too intuitive to sub-
 mit to a systematic design procedure
 and too good at selling to feel it
 necessary to improve our product. As
 a consequence, the body of our work
 can still be in large part characterized
 as aesthetically whimsical and arbi-
 trary as we chase off aftef each rising
 star of inspiration, technically inept
 and irrational as we disdain a respec-
 table scientific method; and econom-
 ically promiscuous, if not actually
 reckless, as we bask in ignorance of
 some of the facts of life.
 These consequences, I believe,
need not be. Creativity is not slave
to whimsy. Instead it is the concerted
response to intuition and experience,
sensory, emotional and intellectual,
disciplined by purpose, guided by
intellect and justified by use. A
systematic design procedure can exist,
not guaranteeing our common genius,
but increasing the chance for good
work by ordinary men. Such a pro-
cedure has four stages. You may
rename them, sub-divide them, or
rearrange them, but essentially they
are adequate to the design process.
These are Interpretation, Ideation,
 (Continued on Page 28)
 THE FLORIDA ARCHITECT