A Real Architect Responds

A self-described former Pullman resident, WSU grad and architect has left a great post on Dnews.com regarding the "architorture" protest last Thursday:

As a former resident of Pullman, a graduate of the School of Architecture, and now a practicing architect, I’m glad to see Pullman growing, and slightly ashamed of this.

If the architecture students want to dedicate their lives protesting each thing in the public realm they find slightly abhorrent, they’re in for a long, frustrating, and largely pointless life. Don’t they know what it means to be “tolerant” of “diversity”? Or do they expect that everything around them should be built to their own pleasing? Their actions are somewhat dismissible; they have no clue what factors actually determine who builds what and why.

My real concern is with the professor and his ilk, for encouraging and promoting this sort of behavior. It’s easy to exist in the confines of a university, and think that your own architectural theories must trump the realities of your client, but it’s an unrealistic and unhealthy expectation to place on the shoulders of students looking for a career. Furthermore, the notion that more and more zoning and design review results in better architecture is fallacious. I wonder; has he worked with and through a building permit process recently?

With professors such as this, and activities of this sort passing as credit, is it any wonder that architecture is as irrelevant and thoughtless as it is today?