Architecture is a very important part of our lives. It affects the way we live, work, and play. Good architecture can make us feel happy, comfortable, and safe. Bad architecture can have the opposite effect.

We are naturally affected and inspired by the world around us and architecture, drawing inspiration from so many other disciplines, is inevitably a source of inspiration in itself. It seems odd then that so few architect-designed buildings around the world are signed by their creators. A signature or an artist’s mark to claim and identify their work as genuinely their own, is intrinsic to so many other art and craft forms. ‘Signing your art’ say ArtBusiness.com ‘is an integral part of the creative process.’ And identifying one’s work, one’s input is not limited to purely fine art forms. 

Architects must learn how to design, but crucially their designs have purpose: being skilled in problem solving is an imperative skill to be able to interpret their clients’ brief into successful constructable buildings. To achieve this, they must understand the science of building technologies, have a thorough grasp of the construction process, and keep up to date with new advances in sustainable building solutions.

Architects’ main area of skill and expertise is in maximising design opportunities for the client, the site, and the budget. And in this last lies an anomaly. We accept that civic buildings might be marked in some way by those that paid for it, often with an inscribed foundation stone or a plaque inside the building. Or, if you are Donald Trump, with your name all over the exterior of the building. This is akin to, say, commissioners of art having their own signatures on the artworks in their collections.

Similarly, there are many examples of buildings all around the world that are named after famous or locally well-known people. There are, however, but a handful of buildings named after the architects that devised them and guided their construction through the whole process.

Quirkily, Christiansborg Royal Palace in Copenhagen, originally intended both as a residence for the Royal Family and the headquarters of the Danish Parliament, flaunts upon several of its walls the initials of Hans Christian Harald Tegner (HT), the interior designer commissioned on the third reconstruction of the palace in the early 1900’s. But once again, no marks, signs, or commemorative plaques acknowledging the principal architect, Thorvald Jørgensen nor either of the architects before him.

Chicago is one of the very few places in the world to honour the creator of their buildings. The Hotel Burnham (constructed 1895) acknowledged its architect Daniel Burnham until it was renamed in 2016, the Sullivan Center is named for the architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and more recently the prolific but little-remembered Chicago architect Edward H. Bennett (1874-1954), has been honoured in Chicago’s 843-foot apartment and condo tower at 451 E. Grand Avenue, now "One Bennett Park, Chicago."

A search for buildings in the UK named after their architects, or even signed by their architects reveals just one. Newcastle University have named their new centre for architecture, due to open in April 2023, The Farrell Centre, after renowned architect Sir Terry Farrell. The irony here is in the fact that although Sir Farrell donated £1m to the project, along with his own architectural archive of architecture related material, the architects of this building are in fact Space Architects and Elliott Architects working in close collaboration with Farrell Centre director, Owen Hopkins.

That is not to suggest that all public architect-designed buildings should be named after them: the intrinsic allocation of a mark or a signature would be enough. But it seems that even when an architect is behind the funding of a building, the original designers and creators continue to be denied credit where recognition is due.

A more in-depth version of this article can be read on our website here.

A collaborative and reactive profession, it is inextricably linked to the power of the patron, whether the client is an influential and affluent individual or a political, commercial, civic or religious organisation.
While architects are no longer deified, their ability to imagine a new impending reality in built form implies a visionary dimension to their work. By focusing on both the practicalities of the profession and the more intangible motivations behind design – humans’ need to make a mark upon their surroundings – this volume provides a critical overview of over 3000 years of practice and education. This is the perfect book to gift to all those aspiring and newly qualified architects in your life. Copies can be bought through Amazon.

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