I was at a dinner party once and a family acquaintance who studied architecture at MIT and was considering getting her PhD in architecture at UC Berkeley made the remark, “I love architecture.” It was such a profound statement that stuck with me, as someone who aspired to be an architect. Do I love architecture? What does that even mean? To love inanimate objects. She wore a black shirt with the inscription, “Why is nothing sacred?” It was as if she was dressing up for me (but she had a boyfriend and I’m gay). Yet, it was a lovely Christmas dinner, nonetheless.
The girl who was clearly very intelligent and lives in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States, stayed on my mind for a very long time. Now that I’m a student at SCI-Arc, I keep thinking to myself, what am I doing here? Architecture feels more like a calling to me, and not a passion. I don’t know if I love architecture. I just sense that this is what I’m good at after experimenting with a bunch of other tangentially related fields. It feels like a very glamourous chore at times.
Yet, there are clearly students in my class who I feel possess the same passion and love for architecture that that girl at that Christmas dinner party does. It’s really great actually because I think the profession does need more people like that around to liven things up during the grind. Architecture can get pretty dark.
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