Architecture is a collective act, but we often hold up the genius founder, romanticizing his ruthlessness as a necessary quirk- cum-flaw. To some extent, it is: Only the obstinate will successfully propagate an architectural style that is recognizable as their own. But the cost of obstinacy is paid further down the line, by the already poorly remunerated employees whose names will float into the ether like the disembodied carbon caused by the New Museum’s demolition of its neighboring building on the Bowery. This is the most salient aspect of Thomas de Monchaux’s argument in “Hot Potato, Kool Potato” (NYRA #51), though it is by no means the only one.
For new hires especially, to attempt to work your way up architecture’s arbitrary and unstable hierarchy feels uniquely futile. The required sacrifices may have changed since the 1990s—the decade in which de Monchaux’s essay mostly dwells—but many fledgling designers still subjugate their ideals to principals whose priorities are static; in the case of Koolhaas (per de Monchaux), more maximum mass potatoes.
I hope tha…
