Peggy Deamer: The Latest Architecture and News

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Architecture firms don’t usually make labor history, but it happened earlier this month when employees at Bernheimer Architecture agreed to form a union. It is a first for the industry and comes six months after an unsuccessful attempt to unionize at SHoP. The initiative was done through the auspices of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in collaboration with Architectural Workers United (AWU), a grass-roots organizing group. Whether this leads to other successful efforts remains to be seen, but it is clearly a step forward for labor in the architecture sector. According to Curbed, AWU is “currently in talks with up to ten other firms across New York.”

Most of the practicing architecture is drudgery, and this is rather unfair. As students, architects are given thoughtful prompts about the built environment and its big questions, as well as sole creative reign to answer those questions. That is the only time in the architect’s life when this is the case, and in many ways, this does not adequately prepare the architecture student for the world of architecture, which is a world of drudgery. In reality, architects are not heroes.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The relationship between the business of architecture and the nature of architectural work is fraught. Many celebrated firms have been built on the backs of young and often unpaid labor. To call this practice an open secret would be inaccurate. It isn’t a secret at all; for some firms, it’s standard operating practice.
The Architecture Lobby, founded in 2013 by Peggy Deamer, has begun the long and laborious process of addressing these issues. Today, the group has 16 chapters and 450 dues-paying members. (Yearly dues amount to 0.2% of total income, or about $100 for a $50,000 salary.) Recently, I spoke with the Lobby’s national organizer, Dexter Walcott, about the group’s recent efforts, its campaign to unionize the field, the Green New Deal, and the future of work.