Human Judgement in Architecture: Diagnosis and Discernment

During the 1980s, in the United States, it was proposed that architecture—following the precedents of law and medicine—should require a professional degree in order to sit its licensing examination. When the proposal came before a national convention of the American Institute of Architects, Jack Hartray, a highly-respected architectural educator and practitioner, addressed a plenary session and wittily argued that, before rushing to become like their colleagues in medicine and law, those assembled should recall that architecture was producing the great cathedrals of Europe at a time when the medical profession was treating patients with leeches, and the legal profession was having people burned at the stake.1 Although something of a simplification and exaggeration, his remarks evoke a tension, or contrast, that usefully opens up the subject of judgement in architecture.