#11 Architects Unionise!

October 01, 2019 01:10:50
#11 Architects Unionise!
Failed Architecture
#11 Architects Unionise!

Oct 01 2019 | 01:10:50

/

Show Notes

We tend to think of architects as professionals rather than workers. Architects design, create, delegate, follow a special calling, but they’re not often seen as “working for a living”, and they’re certainly not much like the workers who actually construct or extract the resources for the buildings they design. And yet, architectural work in the twenty first century has become ever more precarious. As with other white collar workers, architects are becoming increasingly accustomed to short-term contracts, overtime without pay and other traditional hallmarks of exploited labour. 

In light of this new reality, for this episode we’ll be talking to architectural workers from the UK, the USA, and Brazil, about the role a labour union could play in the contemporary architectural profession. We’ll discuss the difficulties, limits and challenges of organizing architectural workers and speculate as to why architects have, until recently, been relatively absent from the history of the labour movement. We’ll also consider how unionisation could give ordinary architectural workers greater control over the buildings and spaces they design as well as over the wider spatial production sector.

– Keefer Dunn is an architect based in Chicago and a national organiser for the Architecture Lobby
– Fernanda Simon Cardoso is an architect based in São Paulo and a former Director for the FNA (Federação Nacional dos Arquitetos e Urbanistas)
– Sam and Alex are architectural workers based in the UK and organisers for Workers Inquiry: Architecture

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes/Jake Soule/the Failed Architecture team.

Other Episodes

Episode 0

July 27, 2020 00:19:18
Episode Cover

Buildings Don't Matter, Too w/ Bassem + Kevin

Breezeblock #9 departs from the fact that in the early days of the protests following the death of George Floyd the Philadelphia Inquirer published...

Listen

Episode 0

July 27, 2022 00:26:33
Episode Cover

On Discomfort: Episode 2 w/ René, Juana, María Victoria and María

Listen to this episode and subscribe to the FA podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Overcast. For Breezeblock #29, editors María Victoria Londoño-Becerra,...

Listen

Episode 0

September 28, 2022 00:25:11
Episode Cover

Architectural Workers Organising in Europe w/Marisa Cortright (pt.2)

This episode is the second of a two-part interview with Marisa Cortright (the first episode is available here). Marisa is the author of the...

Listen