I have often felt that the reasons why particular architects and clients end up together is more interesting than the architecture produced.

Whenever "the" client is in fact a committee there is always a danger that, lacking any strong leadership, there will be no true focus of responsibility. In those few cases where strong leadership, a working hierarchy and a process of delegating tasks do develop, then decision making and reporting back to the whole committee by the natural or appointed leader becomes a genuinely effective structure. But ordinarily committees seek safety in statistics and in common-denominator decisions whereby each member expects to elude responsibility and evade criticism. These individuals often lack any direct knowledge, are unsophisticated about design and construction and are easily taken-in by merely apparent expertise. Their most characteristic question, thus, is "how many fire stations" or "how many crematoria" have you already done and they will opt for the security of thinking that since this is going to be your 101st fire-station, therefore nothing can go wrong. Since they lack leadership to focus and accept responsibility, committee members tend to remain passive and only perfunctorily involved unless something does go wrong. Then, however, committees become ruthless predators in finding others than themselves to blame.

A somewhat different sort of problem is presented by the committee which, needing to feel busy and occupied, spends inordinate amounts of time passively listening to show and tell from an endless line of architects. They would be far better off spending that time doing research in a library on their own and then returning to report . . . to themselves! But in order to gratify such a committee, the architect is obliged to become an entertainer and showman. What should have been an effective dialogue is thus turned into a kind of tranquilizer instead of a diagnostic inquiry into the relationship between this client and this architect. However there is this to be said for the showman: without him the committee plus architect meetings might never come to an end.

Corporate clients (or developers who wish to cater to them) frequently have such a pressing agenda that the architect is reduced to a decorator and his name is used merely to dress up the image of what, in fact, is a preordained and purely economic "program:" Not surprisingly, corporate clients seek out corporate architects, where there is congruence up and down the line in organization, staffing, life-styles, even modes of dress.

Certain sorts of settings or contexts virtually eliminate any effective exploration of the tremendous potential in client-architect relations. For example, larger mixed-use projects have checks and balances with subspecies of specialists as well. Ultimately the housing specialist and the retail office specialist and the exterior decorator et al are all teamed up and herded about by the construction manager.
Or consider the client-type who asks architects to provide an idea of what they can do for them (free or promotional sketches). Frequently this tantalizes some architects but it should usually be viewed as a warning signal that the "client" (1) may not have any money, (2) may not own the land, (3) may not be the real client but a surrogate, (4) may be putting together his developer's brochure, and surely (5) has no genuine conception of how architects (should) work.

Again, it often happens that very large corporate or institutional clients change project representatives during the course of a project. Architects do this sometimes too. The desired result is that the rules can be re-written around some new situation or manager and then the old directives become non-directives in spite of the good memos and job files. The effectiveness of this as a ruse is in direct proportion to the size of the respective organizations.

Finally, in this small list of samples, there is potential for fruitless discussions and poor work even among those clients who are affluent enough to embark on an architect-designed private house. In ascending order of gravity one encounters (1) those who ask you to find some contractor for them who will follow their napkin sketch, (2) those who intensively interview you and all your architect peers seeking some perfect image fit, (3) those who beg you to do your brand name house and permit them to live in it.

Another dimension to architecture itself
In marked contrast to all of these contexts which prevent or corrode the relationship and which frustrate and hamper the architect is the best or ideal client. This client grows during the course of the relationship and becomes very secure, responsible, intelligent and visual. He will have a sense of history and be able to make decisions. Such a client comes fully to understand what he or she wants and turns into a kind of shadow (perhaps frustrated?) architect. Thus the architect comes to be an extension, eventually, of the client's well-formed concept. Now there comes into being a symbiosis of purpose: much time will be devoted to exploring (in words) the psychological and philosophical bases from which both professional and client approach the project. Following this period of mutual insemination, as it were, comes a crucial gestation period. Such a client understands the appropriate division of labor and will be actively involved in everything except for the final creative act. He or she will savor each step of the full process. Even the frustration alluded to above evaporates as the client participates in the creativity, in the entire process and empathizes so deftly that it comes to feel like mutuality of crafting as well.

Whenever a client and an architect interact in this manner the result is truly another dimension to architecture itself. A complex set of needs has been brought to fruition in a building. And when the architecture and the function it houses are thought of as ends in themselves, rather than simply as a means to profit, then I believe that a whole host of architect/owner competing priorities and frictions are automatically resolved. Illustrating architecture which is or surely can be an end-in-itself are monuments, institutional structures, community buildings and well thought out private homes.

If, though, the work is construed and perceived only or mainly as a conduit to profits (is only a "means architecture" and not an "ends architecture"), then the process which I have just described is twisted and finally aborted regardless of the euphemistic posturing by all parties concerned to make it appear otherwise. People and architecture and the environment too are used up and down the line just to produce profits. People and architecture survive in that world too, but it can get pretty rough.