Look at this photo below. Can you recognize who the designer of this bag is?

Look at this photo below. Can you identify who the designer of this bag is?

Look at this photo below. Can you recognize who the architect is?

Now, let's look at this image below. Can you remember who the architect is?

Image excerpt from Guggenheim Bilbao.eus

There is a high probability of knowing who this architect is: Frank Gehry. Gehry's building has been disliked because of its monstrous and dystopian style. Gehry building has also been mocked as heavy on showmanship and narcissism but devoid of practicality and waste of materials.

According to Fred Kent, "Architects are trying to get into architecture magazines, and they bandy about architectural jargon that no normal person can understand, and then what they deliver stuff that is out of context with communities." —The New York Times.

On the other hand, the reason why people want a recognizable building in their town is the exact reason why they want to purchase a recognizable bag. Gehry's work has proven that people travel halfway around the world to look at a building as well as its content. It stands as living proof that a building can highlight a town on the map. The museum was visited by over 1.17 million guests in 2019 (from 956,000 in 2010), showing an uptrend over the period. (Source: Statista)

This phenomenon also happens in other cities around the world. A city such as Barcelona has a proven record showing that Gaudi's work has been their most powerful marketing tool. The same expectation also happens at the recent Vessel project at Hudson Yard, New York. But I will leave that for future discussion.

Ok, so let's go back to our original question:" How to be a 100% liked architect?" My answer to you would be, "there is no way to be 100% liked architect." Why? Because there is no way to be all-liked and all-ordinary at the same time.

We like our place; I believe so do our neighbors. However, we don't even know this architect's name, who designed this small cottage in the 1950s. Moreover, just because those architects in our neighborhoods are unknown, people don't even bother to like them or dislike them…

Those well-known architects were liked by their styles and abstraction. They were also attacked due to their "design" and (often) impracticality. Their works are so distinct; therefore, we always know which architect (designer) to admire or blame.

Would you rather be a well-liked but ordinary architect? Or a partial-disliked yet extraordinary architect? If you could choose...

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