Customer Reviews

Curing the Fountainheadache: How Architects & Their Clients Communicate

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book is easy reading and entertaining. Candid inside stories from some prominent architects about their client relationships on well-know projects are worth the read. I found the stories to be more entertainment than instructional. The vignettes do tend to promote of an understanding of the parties involved in the architect-client relationship, rather than provide an instructional "how-to."

I'm not sure for whom this book is written. Clients will gain little insight on how to select or work with an architect from this book, and architects will gain little insight on how to deal with a client. The examples of architecture from the author's own past are dated. In the end, I found the stories from the client perspective far more insightful than those from the architect's side. The clients were able to more clearly voice their frustration and as a result, their less than perfect projects. I don't think this book cured the Fountainheadache, but merely exposes it with no real solutions.

Good idea, and includes a number of great interviews with the likes of Charles Gwathmey and Stanly Tigerman. Too much of the author's person "stuff" is included, however.

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This book has some excellent parts. worth 5 stars
But some of the parts are terrible. worth 1-2 stars

overall it is probably 3 1/2 stars - maybe 4
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The book contains several case studies in each of ten areas. The last one is the client view. You need to read that one.
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The cases that are interviews are hard to read. ZERO stars for them.

Skip the interviews and the irrelevant (to you) parts and then this book is not bad. and it is useful and entertaining.
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The typography is amateurish in places - or is it really "artistic" as suits an "architecture" book that thinks that ART-i-texture and making a bold statement is what architecture is really about. 2 stars for the publication quality including all factors.
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if you are an architect, learn how to do better.
these are practical lessons not taught in school.

learn how to deal with clients for fewer problems and achieve better results while making a profit.
5 stars here, maybe 6 or 7 if you dont know this stuff already.
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if you are an exec, learn how to deal with architects and get the building you need and not pay them to make a statement , win awards , and build a portfolio on your millions of dollars.
solid 4-5 stars for this aspect
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if you are joe sixpak, then enjoy watching others create great "ART" or rather shell out big bucks for some architect to do that, and be happy that you will never need to deal with an architect. you just cant afford it. buy a house from the builders models, and add the options the builder offers.

you do NOT want to put out big bucks to custom build a house. like owning a boat, if you have to worry about the money you cant afford it.
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the book is mostly short case studies that show what went wrong, what was good, and capsulises the lessons learned. where this is done well it is 5 stars

but since this book was written by many people, it suffers from that problem, although integrated and edited consistently much better than most such books with multiple contributors.
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full disclosure - I am a SYSTEMS ARCHITECT. And a licensed PE, although not an RA.

I am not pretentious enough to want to do ARTitexture, make statements, build portfolios, and play the artsycraftsy political games of the ART world.
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I learned something. That makes this book a winner from my perspective.
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I also learned that most building architects, despite their legal stranglehold on making buildings, do not know a lot of things about proper architecture. And not just their misguided bias that architecture is ART.
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I was pleased to see that many of them did note that the functional requirements were the place to start.
And that many of them mentioned constraints (time, budget, building codes, etc.) that limited their ambitions.
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What most of them missed, and none explicitly mentioned was the fact that the NONfunctional requirements are what drive success or failure of all projects like this.

Some of them did mention usability, and other NFR factors such as resalability. But most of them ignored the wider range of the NONfunctional aspects.
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Way too many of them think we exist to give them our money so they can make a "statement" and create great "ART".

Not all of them, but still way too many of them. Even though things are not as bad as in the past.
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Some examples - architect designs a building that is intended to have large audiences think concert or school auditorium. The sound is atrocious. Nobody can understand anything.

he says that is not his problem. He designed the building and is not responsible for how they USE it.
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Many cases like this, also some success stories.
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Book is biased towards official architects.
They want you to use their stock contract.

Do NOT do that! Get a lawyer to watch out for your interests. Stock contracts are designed to protect the architects not you.
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There are many contradictions since the book was written by many people and they do not all agree on what architecture should be nor how to do it.

Not hard to sort it out if you stand back and evaluate it with a critical eye.
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If you have to be involved with architecture at all you should read this book.
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