Frank Lloyd Rat and what the economic downturn means for architects

Pearls Before Swine has been taking jabs at superstar architects this week, and today’s strip was particularly humorous in my opinion.

I feel the need to add that I was thrilled, in this day and age of old media hanging on to the last vestiges of archaic copyright laws, to see this in the FAQ of Comics.com:

Q: I want to embed a copy of a certain strip on my Web Site or Intranet. Is that ok?
A: Not only is it okay, it’s awesome! In fact, it’s not just awesome, it’s kind of what we built the site for!

Finally, a company that realizes the power of blogs and small websites as marketing and not infringement, unlike others such as NPR or so many professional photographers.

In other architecture related news, Architecture + Morality posted an interesting article on how the profession deals with economic downturns. An excerpt from the piece (which I haven’t finished reading yet):

For many architects this quantitative view pales to their concern for quality. Success is seen differently by many of us, who would rather be proud of a beautiful project done during a time of scarcity than collecting year-end bonuses for voluminous yet mediocre work delivered during times of plenty.

Staying true to one’s convictions in the face of financial hardship is a perennial romantic ideal among ‘serious’ architects, even as it is a major cause of why the practice of architecture is comparitively unprofitable (Rand’s The Fountainhead, anyone?).