Patterns of Exploitation

The following editorial was published in 1991 in the out-of-print periodical, Progressive Architecture. It was again republished in 2000 because the incident that sparked the article was repeated in a different school--another all-nighter, another car accident, another death. I am posting it here again because sadly it is still as relevant as before.

Last semester, a student at an architecture school, who had been putting in long hours to complete his final project, drove home to change for the jury, lost control of his car, and was killed. One wants to say that such a senseless loss was an isolated incident. But for those of us who survived architecture school-"five-year fraternity hazing," as one architect recently called it-we know that abuses of the body and mind were legion and that any one of us, exposed to the same hazard near the end of a semester, could have suffered the fate of that student.

Some schools of architecture have begun to acknowledge the pressure placed on students and the concomitant risks that go with it. A few schools have even taken steps to change the situation: coordinating assignment due dates, for example, or providing psychological counseling on demand. Such efforts are commendable, but they mostly address the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of students' exhaustion and overwork.

That may be because the reasons are complex and deep-rooted in the profession. First, there is the fraternity aspect of architecture, where the pressure on students and interns, in particular, becomes a kind of rite of passage or, less generously, a weeding out of those unfit for membership in the club. Then there is the macho approach that sees students and recent graduates in need of toughening up if they are to make it in this field. Finally, there is the romanticized image of the architect-as-suffering-artist, which, if less overt, remains widespread in the schools and, as it is internalized by students, may inhibit them from protesting their conditions.

At issue is not the value or even the necessity of hard work, commitment, or dedication. There has never been, and probably never will be, a lack of that among students and recent graduates who are serious about becoming architects. The question is: When do we cross the fine line between hard work and exploitation? The answer, I think, depends upon who is to gain from the extra effort.

For example, some schools have begun to reduce the length of semesters, in part to save money on utility costs. That, combined with the need to cover more material within the architecture curricula, can greatly add to the time pressures on students. It is difficult to see how this benefits students or, put another way, it is easy to see how students' willingness to work hard can be abused.

Taking advantage of such willingness becomes even greater once these students graduate and take entry-level jobs in offices. Here, architects with the greatest reputations are sometimes the worst offenders, allowing students and recent graduates, for instance to work for little or no pay. The irony is that such treatment of employees may, in the long run, harm a firm. Some offices, according to an architecture professor who studies such matters, have not adopted computer technology because of the plentiful supply of inexpensive labor from students and recent graduates.

Exploitation thus becomes institutionalized: Some firms come to depend upon overworked, underpaid staff to survive, and they resist even talking about the problem. One dean of architecture mentioned the exploiting of employees as a topic that should be addressed; "That was the only subject they never got around to discussing," he says.

The architecture profession, of course, is not alone in mistreating its young. The medical profession is probably worse, for its formalized internship programs, intended to give recent graduates a full range of experience, also force them into working unconscionably long hours for relatively low pay. One difference is that the medical profession, in part forced by the life-or-death errors that exhausted interns can make, has begun to openly discuss and seriously address the problem.

This can be a life-or-death issue for the architecture profession as well, not only individually but also collectively. Once exploitation becomes part of the culture of a group, it tends to perpetuate itself, just as abused youths are more likely to become abusive parents. It also tends to color all relationships. How much does the mistreatment that architects accept from developers, for example, have to do with the tacit acceptance of such behavior within the profession's own ranks?

Resolving the problem will require further effort by faculty and administrators at schools, more teeth in the pertinent section of the architect's code of ethics, and a stronger stigma being attached to the exploitation of employees. But most of all, it will demand that students and recent graduates simply not take it anymore.