A personal perspective on Architecture, by Sunando Dasgupta
In every profession, every few years you’ll tend to reach a plateau in terms of how much you love your work and the extent to which you’re invested in it.
Now, this is perfectly natural, its part of the sine wave of long term progress to have dips in your level of engagement.
Usually, the ‘dip’ naturally evens itself out and you’ll find yourself loving your work as you did before.
However, a great way to shake yourself out of those transient, temporary moments of disinclination or lack of motivation is to remind yourself why you love the work you do, and how it has been a catalyst in your personal evolution.
Take this (all too common example) –
You wake up, and you know there are a lot of dreadfully boring tasks you have to do today – – whether its repetitive drawing checking, or reworking a revision for the nth time.
Even the alarm clock seems to be sarcastic and pessimistic as it wakes you up. You go to work and find out that the rest of the week is going to be exactly like today – – maybe worse.
At this point, you have a few options – – you can 1) blame other people – – there’s no shortage of people to blame: your clients, vendors, employees, colleagues, consultants. Blaming other people does work temporarily, in that you will feel a lot better for an hour or two – – but its a very temporary elation (the elation of being more ‘right’) and eventually you’ll settle into the recognition that you have to do the work either way.
2) you’ll settle into that recognition of the necessary work that needs doing, and you’ll save an hour or two of your life. Highly recommended but not always possible, is it.
And as you do that, you can begin to also appreciate all the experiences you’ve had as a result of being in this field.
For example –
The gratification of completing a building project – – not many people will be able to claim that they literally ‘left a mark’ on the face of the urban fabric – – in that respect, architects are a rare breed.
The fact that every successful project is a team endeavour, and a reflection of your ability to coordinate and work with people from vastly different backgrounds and competencies – – every project is, in a way, proof of how well you’ve been able to manage competing concerns and agendas into an outcome that suits all parties involved.
Or it may be the fact that you’re in an industry that never stagnates. Given the rapid rate of technological development, its sometimes tempting to wish things changed slower, but would you really want that?
How quickly would you get bored of your work if it never changed, if you did the same tasks for decades.
In many ways, the fact that the industry changes rapidly means that it forces you to think on your feet and stay sharp to be able to convert the challenges you face into opportunities for growth.
Or perhaps it’s the fact that as an architect, you’re always a mentor to fresh graduate architects and interns, which puts you in a position where you can positively influence the careers of the hundreds of young professionals.
And those are just some of the reasons.
I’m sure, given a moment of reflection, you’ll easily be able to think of all the reasons why, in the long run, you’re glad to be a part of the architectural profession.
And when you look back at all the repetitive work, all the mundane tasks that used to annoy you, you can begin to understand that, as uninteresting as some of that work may be, they’re not dealbreakers – – they don’t take away from how much you love what you do, once you’re able to zoom out and get perspective.
And that’s what ultimately matters.
SDAarchitect is a full service architectural firm headquartered in Delhi, India, with completed and ongoing projects all over the country.