Architect as a synergist

The article presents a critical analysis of the scope of the work and status of the architect that changes over time, along with pointing to the current situation in Poland. The scope of the work of the vitruvian Architectus spanned from the planning of cities to the construction of clocks; the entirety of the knowledge of engineering was to be mastered by him. Architecture was treated as the Mother of the Arts. The result of the synthesis of the arts was the XIX-century Gesamtkunstwerk. Żórawski (1961) wrote of the organic link between architecture and the other arts. Le Corbusier (1929) defined architecture as the learned game of forms assembled in light, essentially limiting it to its visible form. Today, mastering the entirety of the discipline by a single individual is impossible. The architectural profession has begun to split into fragments and specialisations. From architects there have come urban planners, structural engineers, landscape architects, ecologists and lately even intermediaries between stakeholders (the users and the design team), serving to carry out behavioural public intervention – all of them are associated with architecture. The necessary scope of the analysis now includes all manners of environmental issues (natural, social, professional and legal ones) as well as ecological and economic ones. Design itself has received digital coordination, modelling, drafting and presentation tools. What say does an architect have in Poland today? As an urban planner, he has been struck from the law (2014), as an architect he exists in the professional association chamber, but he no longer has mastery over the other arts. The Urban Planning and Construction Code Act (2017) has left out building clocks, but it also does not mention the architect. Construction practice confirms that the synergistic understanding of the profession has been forsaken, as well as the fall of the creativity and moral responsibility of the members of a – nominally – profession of public trust. In current Polish journalist post-language the words ‘architecture’ and ‘architect’ are applied in extremely contradictory cases, like “architect of the massacre in Yemen”. Where has architecture gone?