Get the Money

Do clients and the public understand an architect’s value? Do architects understand it? Are architects a self-selecting group of business-averse introverts? These were the questions that anchored a lively, wide ranging, and vital conversation on the complicated relationship between architects and value, organized by AIANY’s Future of Practice Committee. Co-chairs Jacob Reidel and Andre Soluri shared the stage with Erin Pellegrino and Michael Caton, with Marjanne Pearson, Enoch Sears, and Jake Rudin joining virtually (all have found ways out of conventional architectural practice), to discuss the “elephants in the room”: academia, the AIA, and a professional culture persistently aloof from business. “Are we missing the business development gene?” asked Soluri. Pellegrino responded that business acumen is not a gene, but a skill that is learned in school. Sears lamented how owner representatives and construction managers are taking over. Successful larger firms, mentioned Pearson, always have a business manager, but panelists agreed that smaller firm leaders have to em…