Architects Scolded

Fees that U. S. builders pay their architects each year total not less than $80,000,000. Of that sum architects by unorderly conduct of their business waste perhaps $8,000,000. If queried on the wastage, an architect would doubtless explain that he is too concerned for the needs of his client to be careful of his own expenditures.

Last week a leading architect, Edwin Bergstrom of Los Angeles, not only scolded his fellows for their wastefulness of income but scoffed at highfaluting notions. Said he: "Architecture is not a true profession in the sense that the other fine arts are professions. The musician, painter, and the sculptor create with their own hands their finished art, but the architect would make a sorry show if he should build his dreams. Of all professions, he alone must depend upon others to give form and substance to his art.

"Architecture is further differentiated from the true professions. The architect creates his art to satisfy a definite need; the sculptor and painter to satisfy their own imaginations. There must be definite need for his creation before the architect can begin his work of art. . . .

"Architecture is a collaborative profession; a coordination of efforts to create a work of art to fulfill a definite need within a definite cost. The mind of the architect must interpret the need from another mind, apply it to his imagination, translate the concept to other minds and direct still other hands to give it form and substance and make it fulfill the need for which, and satisfy him for whom, it was created."

Architect Bergstrom is treasurer of the American Institute of Architects. His desire: to persuade U. S. architects to budget their time, labors, expenses, as other intelligent businessmen do.