No Truer Words Spoken in Architecture

"Your personal spirit has to evolve into your language that you create [...] -- it requires a certain amount of trust to go forward, that's the hardest thing I think. I have it in my own family, where I see that my kids struggling with that." -- Frank Gehry

When you go to a design-focused architecture school, you are tasked with finding your voice and developing your language. When you leave school for the working world, most of the firms require you to subdue your voice and adopt their language. Even those who are lucky to work for a design-oriented firm are usually asked to repress their own language in order to support the language of the firm -- an understandable thing.

This is pervasive even outside of employment. Go online to YouTube and search for how-to videos (design and ideation) and you tend to find people pushing a conformity to process. They'll all say you need to find your own process but their processes all resemble each other's.

It is not easy. It is not for those who seek the security of a steady income or who otherwise cannot tolerate poverty. It is not for those who cannot endure suffering and those without self-doubt (for without self-doubt one cannot possibly expect to strive to become better). It is not the path everyone else travels, for if it were, then everyone would be great designers.