On Architects...

In recent years buildings (mostly highrise) are constructed much more like machinery than stone palazzos of yore . In particular, exo-skeletton buildings are recent hit , due to strength advantages , a solution long-known to mechanical engineers as structures- builders... Illustre example , one of the first, was Bank building in Hong Kong (didnt care this time to look up wikipedia, maybe I'm mistaken). Sir Norman Forster did his name with such and similiar excellent and beautiful constructions.

Being myself a mechanical engineer , I got a small drop of satisfaction , or Schadenfreude , with that. Architects always put themselves above grey engineering folk: with their artistic skills, hand-drawing, knowledge how to pile stones into stable static structures ,cultural mix, and - last but not least - with their title ("archi-tect" = highest master).

A building built out of metal , prefabricated parts resembles a machine much more than stone structure, and the tools & methods used for hundreds years by mechanicians are quickly and clandestinely (out of shame) copied by architects.

In my free time - but since years - I have (clandestinely, too) drawn and constructed architectural pieces (mean just small pieces) , some even turned to reality , using software and engineering applied daily for strictly mechanical jobs. I had satisfaction to be able to draw a building, with all internal structures , using mechanical CAD , in just several hours- a time required by an architect to select (initially) a colour of a facade. Not that I neglect taste, aesthetic contemplation and so on. Just comparing hardwork to hardwork...