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THE ARCHITECT This page intentionally left blank THE ARCHITECT Chapters in the History of the Profession Edited by SPIRO KOSTOF OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Oxford Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia Copyright © 1977 by Oxford University Press, Inc. First published in 1977 by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1986 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Piiblication Data Kostof, Spiro I. The Architect : chapters in the history of the profession. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Architecture—Vocational guidance. I. Kostof, Spiro. NA1995.A73 1986 720'.23 86-5174 ISBN 0-19-504044-9 (pbk.) ISBN 0-19-502067-7 987654 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface Architecture cannot be the world's oldest profession—tradition has decided that issue long ago—but its antiquity is not in doubt. The presence of architects is documented as far back as the third millennium before Christ. Graphic conventions of architectural practice make their appearance even earlier, as for example the plan of a residential cluster in a wall painting of the seventh millennium B.C. at Catal Hb'yiik in Asia Minor Indeed even without documentation it can fairly be postulated that architects were abroad from the moment when there was the desire for a sophisticated built environment. For buildings of substantial scale or a certain degree of complexity must be conceived by someone before construction of them can begin. This is what architects are, conceivers of buildings. What they do is to design, that is, supply concrete images for a new structure so that it can be put up. The primary task of the architect, then as now, is to communicate what proposed buildings should be and look like. The architect does not initiate buildings, nor necessarily take part in the physical act of construction. The architect's role is that of mediator between the client or patron, that is, the person who decides to build, and the work force with its overseers, which we might collectively refer to as the builder. These are not of course rigidly distinct identities. When architects undertake to build their own houses they become, additionally, clients, and non-professional clients sometimes dispense with the services of an architect and simply produce their own designs. Even more frequently, vi PREFACE builders put up standardized buildings for a general market without benefit of the architect's skill. Finally, the great majority of buildings, socalled vernacular architecture, is the result of individual efforts—people who decide to build, settle for the common look of the community, and produce buildings in the accepted local way. In this book we are not concerned with anonymous architecture of this kind, nor with the rare cases where architects act as their own clients and the reverse. We are dealing with the profession of architecture, the specialized skill that is called upon to give shape to the environmental needs of others. How did architects get to be architects in any given period of history? How were they educated and trained? How did they find their clients and communicate with them? To what extent did they supervise the execution of their designs? What d