This issue of "Perspectives on the Professions" is itself a new perspective on "Perspectives." Six accounts follow of varying kinds of experiences had by various sorts of clients with architects. My own main editorializing consists in this one fact: all of the italics in the articles were inserted by me.

As one consequence of many years of teaching a course called "Moral Issues in Architecture" at Illinois Institute of Technology. I have come to feel that when things go wrong about buildings and charges of moral and character defects are made, the true cause of the transgressions was a radical failure of communication. Such failures, especially when they occur between design professionals and their clients, have two characteristics. First, the vocabulary of architecture and design is ordinarily not familiar to lay clients and the design professional seldom realizes this or takes the time to work out with his/her client a common vocabulary. Second, and rather more seriously, some architects do not wish to make their clients co-workers in the planning and seemingly prefer an autonomous, arbitrary and often arrogant mode of "designing for" the client. This mode and this attitude contribute not only to the general ignorance about the built environment, but also to a widespread mistrust of architects.

Failure to make the client a kind of co-worker and planner implies a lack of respect for the client. Such lack of respect, especially when coupled with the performance of actions which significantly affect that client, at once defy the fundamental principle of Kantian morality (respect for persons), and break a major rule of Bernard Cart's (don't injure). But it often happens that insults and injuries are caused, at least in part, by ignorance. It is to alleviating such ignorance about client-architect interaction that this issue (as well as some projected future issues) of "Perspectives" is directed. In the meantime, I eagerly solicit more such accounts as well as Letters to the Editor.