Becoming an Architect

Masters at Work

by Janelle Zara

An illuminating guide to a career as an architect written by art and design journalist Janelle Zara and based on the real-life experiences of two experts in the field—required reading for someone considering a path to this rewarding profession.

Go behind the scenes and be mentored by the best to find out what it’s really like, and what it really takes, to become an architect. Design critic Janelle Zara takes readers to the front lines to offer a candid portrait of this challenging profession. What does it actually mean to be an architect today? What do they do? How do they do it?

Zara shadows acclaimed architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of the prestigious Los Angeles-based firm Johnston Marklee. Learn from the founders as they near the unveiling of their major new building, the Menil Drawing Institute. Sit in on meetings as they compete for new projects, and watch as they conceive, draft, render, plan, construct, and execute buildings. Architects must juggle hundreds of items to ensure their ideas come to life as planned. Zara shows that good architects must have artistic vision as well as organizational acumen.

An accessible and informed primer on a hot profession, Becoming an Architect is the most valuable informational interview you’ll have—required reading for anyone considering this dream job.

Genres: Architecture

144 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 2019

Reviews

[Kyle Dellenbaugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had promise but fell flat. It followed the lives only of one married couple and their Los Angeles firm. The two architects are simply not like most people who will enter the profession, both graduating from Harvard's graduate school and moving on to teaching at the collegiate level while being practicing architects. I think this book suffers from the bubble it takes place within, as those two aren't representative of the profession as a whole, and their tidbits from Harvard, USC, and a few other architecture schools are certainly not representative of many other architecture schools outside of the Ivy world. Even my own architecture school, Notre Dame, focuses significantly on classical architecture and emphasizes a foundation of hand-drawing, ideas that are largely ignored and sometimes even dismissed in this book. The book does provide some insight into things like complications with construction and the competitive process of winning clients on a large scale, but again, these specific experiences mentioned are not the same as what most people experience. Let it be noted that Zara never claims that what she writes about is the same for every architect and even mentions at points that there are other routes and ways of practicing architecture. But just ceding this is not enough because for a book with a premise so broad - becoming an architect - I find it necessary for the author to explore other avenues and lifestyles of architects beyond the bubble of the Harvard elite.

[Andrew Duret · Rating 3 out of 5]

PEACE.
This book takes place starting out in Santa Monica, LA with the author Janelle Zara shadowing interesting architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of LA-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee.

This book is very interesting and informative to say the least. Through this reading, I learned from the perspective of the founders Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee as they near the unveiling of their new and major project of the Menil Drawing Institute.

As a small child who dreamt of being an architect and veered away to now being an adult who contemplates a career change, my reading thus far has provided me a perspective I wasn’t privy to prior. Not only am I learning the language of the architect which I find pretty cool, I am also getting a fly on the wall perspective of a day in the life of an architect.

In this reading session, I learned a lot more than I expected. For one, I was very intrigued at the perturbing lack of diversity within the field of architecture. To quote the book, “…2% of registered architects in the United Sates identify as black, and 3% as Latino. And despite almost equal numbers of men and women in architecture school, only 18% of registered practitioners are women, and only .3% identify as black women”. What was also very eyebrow raising to me was that up until 1972, architectures schools were allowed to deny women entry solely based on sex.

Being an NYC native, I also loved learning about the Via Verde project that was a result of a winning submission for a design competition for affordable housing in New York City. Phipps Houses located in the historically impoverished South Bronx section of NYC was a recipient of a large green roof planted with vegetable gardens and fruit trees and a sunny gym on a high floor to maximize natural light indoors.

All in all I enjoyed being the reader and feeling as if I was sitting in on meetings with Johnston Marklee as they drafted, rendered, constructed, and executed on plans and building. I gave the book 3 stars because it lacked the introspect of being an actual student in architecture school, however I still enjoyed the book overall.

[Sophia Manguerra · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone exploring a potential career change and going back to school, this was a really good book that outlined the great and not so glamorous parts of a career in architecture.

[Claire Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as research for a fiction project and found it helpful to get a general idea of what it takes to become an architect and what the day to day life of a firm is like.

[EmmaLee Archuleta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am in school for this. I can see this a book for a teaching. Even at that it did not have enough examples. It just followed 2 people.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book illuminating and helpful for developing an entry-level understanding of the profession, but I would be really interested in learning more about the “everyday architects” and mundane, uninspired work that this book spends a lot of time denouncing 🤔 It is clear that Mark Lee & Sharon Johnston and a lot of the big-name firms mentioned in this book do not represent the entirety of the profession, and Zara notes herself that most architects don't come anywhere close to becoming famous, so I wonder how helpful this information really is for someone aspiring to enter the profession without lofty goals of fame in mind.

[Alvand Daghoghi · Rating 2 out of 5]

disappointed but i did learn a good amount, but i think it would've been better if it tracked a more 'realistic' perspective

actual rating: 2.5