The Importance of Being Idle

It's Held Up By Art

So I'm looking into architecture again. Haven't seriously considered that as a career since I was eleven years old, but amazingly the things that discouraged me then are discouraging me now; the entrance requirements for architecture schools rely more heavily on art qualifications than they do on science and engineering. Now I obvioulsy appreciate that from an overall design point of view you need to have an artistic vision, so I looked into being an architectural technician. These are the guys who take the architects 'vision' and turn it into something mechanically sound. Guess what? Entrance requirements again rely heavily on an accomplished portfolio of work, and only require the absolute minimum of scientific qualification (a mathematics GCSE grade C or above...). I can kinda see that for a design architect an artistic flair is important, but surely the tech guys should actually have a solid basis in mathematics, physics, engineering... they are after all turning the architects pretty drawings into something that won't fall down. I'm a pretty decent draftsman (although I suppose everybody is in these days of CAD) and an accomplished model maker, and of course a kick-ass mathematician, but unless I can sketch the front elevation of a building in a way that'll impress a committee it seems that architecture will once again turn its back on me.
Of course, it's possible that I give up too easily.

posted by BadMonkey @ 2:02 PM