Engineer or Architect: A Crisis of Identity

Is this person an architect or an engineer? For LeonardoDa Vinci such distinctions would have beenmeaningless; these professions simply did not exist.Today, all professions, not only architecture and engineering,are steadily hyper-specializing. Now onemight ask: what type of architect or what stripe ofstructural engineer is this person? Specialization inthe technical sense can be beneficial. By increasingefficiency for a very specific purpose, we realizesome economic or productive advantage. Whileexcellent for a technician hyper-specialization createsbarriers against this same technician’s potentialmove into a position of leadership.1 Perhaps as oneresponse to the continual branching and stratificationhappening in so many fields, some individualsfollow a multi-disciplinary trajectory.There is a mixed group of individuals who pursueboth architecture and engineering. Some are academicsothers are consummate professionals; allhave interesting things to say about the relationshipbetween the fields and how they perceive futuretrends. This paper is the beginning of a workin progress that seeks to quantify this group of architect-engineers and to understand their viewpointand how they perceive their identity. As products of,and in many cases participants in, architectural educationthis group is a potentially valuable resource.

Volume Editors
Ikhlas Sabouni & Jorge Vanegas