Common Definition: A person who designs buildings.

Unauthorized Definition: Architects are media darlings. The Fountainhead featured Gary Cooper as an uncompromising artist. Robert Reed’s character, Mike Brady was a cool architect dad for The Brady Bunch TV sitcom. Paul Newman was a white collar hero saving lives in The Towering Inferno. For at least three movies, Steve Martin played an intellectual yet romantic architect. However, the funniest architect characters came later when Matt Dillon and Lee Evans both faked being architects in There’s Something About Mary. Sadly few architects in the media are women. Although this is changing in the real world.

In all these portrayals, architects are cultural heroes saving the day and getting the girl. Not the blow things up kind of guys. Instead the architect is a creative genius. A complete Renaissance man, half artist and half engineer. Clearly architects are popular role models for how men should behave in our modern society.

In reality, today’s architects are often attention seeking artists who view homeowners as patrons instead of clients with needs. The “Starchitect” sports a huge ego and serious costume. They usually signal importance by wearing distinctive outfits: all black or funny glasses. Sometimes both at once, like an existentialist philosopher from the 1960’s.

Sound Like a Pro: An unlicensed designer cannot be called an architect, but can still wear the funny glasses. Most states require a professional degree in architecture and three years of apprenticeship before taking a licensing exam. After passing the exam and paying the fees, the apprentice becomes a full-fledged licensed or registered architect. Licensing doesn’t mean the newly minted architect is ready for independent practice. Most designers spend years working for others before handling an entire project independently. This is true even for residential architecture.

Fun Trivia: The joke below reveals an interesting debate about the architect’s purpose, especially for home building. Architects are often accused of being artistic instead of practical and not clearly communicating design intent.

A builder in a hot air balloon floated over an open field. He saw an architect looking up from the field and shouted, “hi there can you help me, I’m lost”.

The architect pondered for a while before speaking. “I can certainly try” explained the architect, “you’re heading west and going 10 miles an hour”.

“Great”, said the builder, “while you took a long time to answer, your information is completely accurate. But I still have no idea where I’m going”.

The architect threw up his hands and exclaimed, “you were lost when we met. You’re still lost. But now you blame me!”