Many previous encounters with clients confronted us with this question. “Why should we hire an architect, when a foreman knows how to build our house?” Or many a times: “the civil engineer friend of my dad says they can complete a house with just this amount…” Well, this is just the singular case of a house.
Most architects in the country venture in this competitive residential design industry. But in just a decade the number of professional architects have almost doubled. In one of the meetings we spent in the presence of a former chair of the Architectural Board, it was informally mentioned that there now exists an oversupply of architects in the Philippines. In major urban centres like Manila, Baguio, and Cebu, the practise, one may say, have many avenues of opportunity—but one must also observe the ever-growing densities of these places.
Some architects are proud representatives of corporate institutions: their service range of course from design, to material specialisms; from appraisers to site supervisors. The last six years of “buid, build, build” have offered maybe a great chance to make use of the professional Filipino Architect, but in light, only those who emerge to be the crème de la crème, innately privileged, and well-connected ones get the jobs. Our experience also includes the wide-array of biddings! Instances likened to when a box of an elaborate cake is opened before an excited child. But after a while, the child just leaves a half-consumed slice on a plate and carries-on playing.
We say this such that one realises the discouraging terms of references or technically known as TOR’s. Most government building ventures nowadays only accept design and build-capable contractors. There are really ‘big’ and well-rooted contractors, with in-house and well-compensated architects. Let us not discount the presence of government-employed architects, who never and might never enjoy promotion, but constantly in lower and job-order positions. Positions that are utmost voiceless, and less involved in decision making, except in the demand for production work. More than this though, are architects everywhere who can either be very capable—especially in design or otherwise capable: due to the lack of experience.
Why the lack of experience now? Well, it is because of the lack of breaks and opportunities that could have afforded them experience. The question of equal opportunity now gradually comes into picture. The realpolitik of this issue is that “equal opportunity” does not exist. Maybe it occurs in the thoughts of those who think it can be done. But even them cannot offer viable measures. Unless it is confronted to the face with radical resolve, the concept of equal opportunity remains an illusion.
Architects who survive in this current field really strive with difficulty, competing with industry mammoths, in a culture that nourishes the same giants (who will not rest to give chances to others). But that is the basic concept of business: one must always win in competitions. But again, architecture is not just a business—at least—from the noble and sacred and illustrious and archaic characteristics of the discipline we learnt from architecture school. It can be defined in so many acceptable ways. Other than an enterprise it is a movement—an art—and an instrument of nation building. These are established human concepts that inspire the Filipino architect.
Quite a challenge it is, that for a Filipino architect, who resides in a developing country, needs to balance the passion in art, and the skillsets of business; a very different setting from what the architect learned in school: as they studied the works of renowned and celebrated people in their discipline. Not knowing how these “starchitects” got to where they are. And here we come, where every article must end its pessimism and acknowledge the light at the end of the tunnel… Constant hope and constant aspiration remain in the thoughts of architects in general. Their enormous talent of foresight, and their knowledge of truth cannot be divested from them. We observe a gradual increase towards the capabilities of such professionals and why they matter. It is only a matter of time until a good number of our people realise the architect’s value in society. By then, we can be like other great places, well identified because of a great sense of place.