An Essay for your Thoughts

The following is an old essay by U.P. College of Architecture alumnus Bobby Manasan. The essay deals with the issue of race within the architectural profession. I do understand that the issue of race is not really much of a factor in a relatively "color blind" society which we enjoy in the Philippines but I believe this essay is nonetheless worth taking time to read.

This essay, more than the race issue, gives us a glimpse of how it is that a person can truly "own" his professional development by having a genuine love and desire for his profession and it is this message that I believe is truly relevant especially during these times.

How often now do we hear more and more architecture graduates always playing the blame game in the deterioration or stagnation of architectural development in the country? It's usually the board exam that is often the usual suspect. It's a hurdle for sure and a required one at that, some would even go so far as to say that it is merely "a necessary evil", but is this the right mind set?

Did we ever stop and wonder that all the things we are bemoaning about in the profession might have something to do with the majority of us, yes I said "us", cheating on our internship periods? Yes people, we have blood on our hands.

Here is the fact: a lot of us actually participate in the sham of creating a fictional history of supposed divesified experience instead of actually having a history of diversified experience. And to think a lot of so-called "board exam review schools" actually facilitate this.

Well, some of us actually do take the time to try to fulfill the required diversified experience but how many of us can truly say that we did not just sail through it and that we really put our hearts into it? I don't think a lot of us can truly claim that it is the desire for perfection of one's craft and not the supposed promised land of licensure that drives us through the internship process.

All this in the name of doing away with the "necessary evil" as soon as possible and claim our "rightful" places in architecture heaven. All this because we feel we are beyond the board exam. All this because the finish line looks better than the journey.

Anyway, before this introduction becomes as long as the essay itself, here it is. I wish you read this to the finish...... but more than that, I wish you enjoy the "journey" of reading it as well.......:

My Man, Friday

In 1972, after working there for 7 years, I moved from Connecticut to Virginia to work for another architectural-engineering company. There I met a teenaged black youth, recently graduated from high school. He was a very enthusiastic, handsome, friendly, hard-working, all-smiles kind of a guy. He was the company gofer - he ran
errands for everyone in the company - he was the print boy, he replaced burned-out bulbs, made and served coffee to the bosses, ran out for their sandwiches at lunch, the courier who hand-delivered documents to other firms and company clients and washed the company cars. He showed dedication and love for his work. It seemed that he
enjoyed whatever he was asked to do. He was unlike most menial workers who hated their jobs and the people who lorded over them. He was always ready to do anyone in the office a favor when asked, and always he flashed his engaging smile.

During his free times, between errands, he loved to sit down and learn drafting. He would take a pencil and with the T-square and triangles he would copy the plans and details of the project working drawings lying around. He would ask the draftsmen sitting next to him what the symbols represented. He was a dry sponge ready to absorb everything he could learn.

It soon became apparent to everyone over time that he had acquired the basic skills of a trained draftsman. Little by little he would be asked to help on the projects to meet deadlines. I grew to admire and respect his abilities and talents that I asked a company principal that he be assigned permanently to work on my project team. I became his mentor. I was only a dozen years older than he was.

We worked together like the master and apprentice in the medieval craft guilds of olde England. I passed on everything I knew to him as time went by. On some projects I would send him out to the construction site to appreciate the reality of the lines he drew on paper. Later on I would send him to attend the project meetings between the Contractors and our Clients as our company representative. He was in his mid 20s by then and he thrived on the challenges of the higher responsibilities he was given. He never shirked from them, in fact he kept asking for more.

After several years, he assumed the virtual leadership of my project team. With his acquired knowledge and varied experience it was his turn to mentor the young graduate architects who joined our team. He would explain the details of the projects with them and tell them what are needed to be done. Though a young black man with just a high school education he completely earned their respect and trust. Over time he learned the architectural profession upside down and inside out.

In Virginia, as in many US states, someone who has gained ten years of architectural knowledge and experience through work apprenticeship is allowed to take the professional board exams upon the recommendation of the company one worked for. He applied for it, passed the exams, and earned the title of a Registered Architect.

He left us soon after to join another company as their Chief of Architectural Production. He took charge of all the working drawings for the projects of the firm. He decided on what are needed to be shown and how to show them. He set the standard operating procedures for the company. Just below the level of company principals, he shared equal responsibilities with another architect who was their Chief of Design. He was on his way to becoming a very important man.

Years later he left that firm to join an international architectural-engineering company, with projects all over the world, as their Principal-in-Charge of institutional projects. He supervised his teams of many project architects working on different projects, among them the planned renovations to the Pentagon building. He was a rare black executive in the rarefied corporate world of white managers.

I have always thought of him as my younger brother. Whenever we can, we go to lunch to update each other on our lives. His only son had graduated from college, the first in his family. His father was a railroad yard worker.

I am unsure about the place of race and history in the lives of men. If I knew the History of Slavery I probably would have inspired him to hate the people who enslaved his race. He probably would have become another impassioned activist trying to lead his people into liberation from the exploitation and subjugation by their evil masters, just like Revs. Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. But I was an architect and all I could teach him was how to become a good one. I saw him as a man, not a black man carrying the baggage of a despicable past. We both got to where we wanted to be not because we were brown, black, white, yellow or red, or our forebears were subjugated and exploited by the white man. It was the inevitable result of hard work and dedication to learning. We had overcome.