be of the most service to its clients is one which does its best all the time, which is always up to concert pitch, which does not admit such a thing as lack of preparation or specific knowledge, and which is always ready to deliver the goods it is paid for. I repeat this is not an impossible condition for a group, however much an individual architect might fail therein, and the great motto which ought to be over the door of every architect’s office is, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, that do with thy might,” and one might add for a postscript, “Do it now.” There is hardly any one attitude which will do more than this to restore the status of the architectural profession. Do it right and do it now. This really sums up the gist of the architect s relation to the client.
The relation to the builder is considerably more uncertain. Are we paid to help the owner beat the builder, force him to an impossible contract, incite him thereby to scamp work, or are we to play safe with the builder, whom we want to use many times, and help him out when he gets in a tight hole, “co-operate with the builder,” as one general contractor has expressed it? Are we to consider ourselves the owner’s agent in dealing with the contractor, or are we to take the point of view that we are an arbitrator between the two? Are we to encourage the master builder at the expense of the subcontractor, or develop the subcontractor at the expense of the builder? These are pretty vital questions, and they will not be answered in this generation. The owner hires us as his representative. The builder trusts us to a square deal. That much we know anyway, and I believe, speaking from personal experience, that the architect s function is neither as arbitrator nor agent, but that he should take a position that he is the virtual builder of the structure; that it is his job to see that the contract is carried out as an entity and in a proper manner, and that the cooperation which is so essential in the architect’s own organization is fostered, developed and maintained in the organization of the builder. It is not enough to let a contract to a general contractor and then sit back and see him race to a finish. We must stand over that contract with even more care and foresight than the builder is called upon to exercise. We have more at stake than the builder, and his interests as well as our own are so involved in having the building carried out right from every standpoint that we cannot afford to leave such carrying out for one moment in the hands of anyone but ourselves. We must not allow a clerk of the works to come between us and the owner. We must not allow a foreman, however clever, to come between us and the actual workers, and we must
even guard us from ourselves, that in our perfectly natural desire to do things right and truly we do not overstep our rights and either ask more from the contractors than they ought to give, or take less than we know should be required. We must make the building and the builder right. Never for a moment lend ourselves to any emergency, artistic, business or structural, which would detract from doing the thing just right, but at the same time we must give the builder and all his associates and subordinates the very thing we should promise the owner, namely, first, last and always a square deal.
If we question what constitutes a square deal and try to decide in advance for every case that might arise, we would get nowhere; but we do not* have to decide all questions in advance, and there are very few times when we do not know what constitutes a square deal to a contractor. It is the suppositional cases, the cases which never arise, or which may never come before us, which cause us to doubt, but I think every architect in practice knows perfectly well when he is not giving a builder a square deal, and if he lends himself to that kind of business transaction he has nobody but himself to blame if he gets a bad reputation. Carelessness, oversight and haste may land someone sometime in an equivocal position, but some of the procedures fundamentally essential to keeping the relations clear between the architect and the builder are, first, never trust to memory or to hearsay; second, never to give indefinite instructions or even instructions which are not based upon a specification or a document; and, third, never put off until to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. Remember all the time that the architect really owes more to the builder than the builder does to the architect; that the builder should be our best business friend and our best recommendation ; that he is really doing a part of our work, and we owe it to ourselves and to him to recognize that he is a part of us, and not- an opponent or competitor.
The architect’s relation to the public is very easily lost sight of. We work for our individual clients and with our builders. We must not lose sight of the fact that we are able to practice our calling because of the attitude of the general public toward us. The best architect in the world, if unsupported by local, public appreciation and sympathy, would have but a sorry success. There never was a work of art yet built without its public. We must not be intolerant of the man in the street who passes our work by and puts forth an offhand criticism which we may resent but which may be altogether salutary for us and for our pride.