All of us think that the simplest and cheapest way to raise the quality of architecture is to entrust the architectural work to good architects, and the construction of a good building to the owner. But it is strange that this very simple and cheap method is not used. Instead of buildings that could have been very good, buildings are built that are very bad. Why do supply and demand in the architecture market fail to find each other?
Is it because the owner does not choose a good consultant on the grounds that a good consultant's fee is expensive?
But the added value that a good consultant secures for the owner — through more comfort and ease, greater strength and durability, easier and cheaper maintenance, and greater beauty — is in no way comparable with that fee.
Is it because the owner does not choose a good consultant on the grounds that he makes the work expensive?
But a good consultant uses the same conventional materials, and the owner can, from the very start, set the budget he can afford for the construction of his building as a condition for the consultant, and even take the necessary guarantee from the consultant that this budget will not be exceeded.
Is the reason that a good consultant keeps him waiting and causes him to lose time?
But on this point too he can place a condition on the consultant and take a guarantee from him.
It does not appear that any of these is the real reason for the failure to choose a good consultant. The real reason is that, for the general body of owners, good and bad consultants are not distinguishable from one another. Fundamentally, the owner does not really understand the consultant's work, and the reasoning behind it — except in matters of the prevailing styles and fashions of the market, which are normally executed by so-called master-craftsmen and have little connection with the engineering knowledge of the designer — is unknown to him. As a result, deep down, he has no faith in the architect-consultant or in the effectiveness of his role; and because he sees that role as ceremonial and imposed, good and bad consultants are equivalent in his eyes. Sometimes, too, he feels that the good consultant's taste is not in fashion, and that the result of his work might bring reproach from friends and acquaintances and might also fetch a poor price when the building is sold.
In fact, there is a kind of cultural distance between the general body of owners and good consultants — that is, consultants who consider architecture a serious profession founded on rigorous scientific teaching and on an ethical and social commitment. This is the same distance that exists between architecture itself and society. The general public, too, does not take the trivial thing that is fashionable and current in the market as a profession requiring serious scientific university education. Setting aside the structural drawings, and to some extent the mechanical drawings of large buildings, the architectural drawings of their buildings are nothing more than a graphic language whose teaching does not require a university education. This becomes clear from the comings-and-goings to the municipality to obtain the building permit, and from the body of "knowledge" exchanged in those comings-and-goings — corrections, fixes, the number of parking spaces, how to pay the fine for missing parking, the floor area, the size of the light-well — which leads them to regard the architect as a redundant, ceremonial element imposed by the permit process. In their view, architecture as art means the famous historical masterpieces, fragments of which today's architects sometimes — with the help of good master-craftsmen — imitate in their works. Cultivated architects who do not produce trivial fashionable work appear in their eyes as artists who design for their own pleasure; and because architecture, unlike a poet's poetry, is not free of cost when produced for the architect's own pleasure, the owner cannot hand over control of his money to such an artist.
The remedy for crossing the distance between society and architecture — between the general body of owners and good consultants — though not itself a very simple and cheap remedy, is, with right and considered effort, possible and attainable. If the values of good architecture are real, it must be possible to make the people aware of these realities and convinced of them. Because architecture is produced with capital, all the values it yields must also have an economic equivalent; and architects must not regard the economic standing of these values as something that demeans architecture. There is a difference between architecture being placed in the service of money and capital, and architecture itself being a producer of economic value. Even if architecture possesses the highest artistic value, it is still an object of ownership and an economic commodity. Are not the most artistic objects also the most expensive? Do we not, with reason, call outstanding works "valuable" and "precious"? All good architectures have produced added value; all bad architectures have squandered the capital invested in producing them.
Good architectural works must be made known to society in terms of the various productivities they yield. Consultants must be able to speak to the owner in the language of architecture's practical values. Institutions and media that promote good architecture must be able to spread these values, and the language for expressing them, among the people. Good architecture is a rich treasury of real values that the public, by nature, defends and seeks. An owner who wishes to offer his commodity better to the people will be obliged, in pursuit of the values they desire, to turn to the specialist for the task — that is, to a good architect. Using a good consultant is in fact not costly; on the contrary, because of the great added value he produces, it is income-generating.
Every measure taken so far in the direction of making the values of good architecture known — whether through prizes and competitions, through criticism and presentation of works, or through the formation of bodies and committees that guide owners and clients in choosing a good consultant — has had rapid and quite tangible effects in changing the attitude of owners and clients towards architectural values, and towards the determining role of the good consultant in producing them. The work of guiding and instructing owners requires far wider expansion and institutionalisation. Municipalities are the most appropriate institutions to help spread this method. Young good architects, too, on whose shoulders the burden of raising the quality of Iranian architecture lies, must organise themselves around this aim and, alongside professional work, take up the task of articulating the real, practical values of architecture, and bring the language of that articulation closer to the language of the people. The spread of this language will help the people themselves to be able to evaluate the work of architects.
