Designing to the Deathbed?

Architecture is an old profession, but its practitioners are even older [in relative terms]. The
youngest winner of the Pritzker Prize thus far was Richard Meier at 49. Another recipient, I. M. Pei, is still
actively designing where most nonagenarians would have gladly doddered their way into retirement. It is
common knowledge that most architects do not become established until well into middle age, a
phenomenon that has been remarked upon to the point of becoming a punchline (fill in your own: “Why
are architects so old?”), but answers as to why it has come about have been few and far between.

To answer these questions, it is important to peer beyond stereotypes; surely, the roots of this
relationship lie deeper than the inexplicable feelings of ease that come upon clients while conversing
with grandfatherly figures sporting thick-framed glasses and a weary tousle of snow-white hair. Like the
design process itself, the search for this reasoning is unending in its scope. While it is impossible to
individually ascertain what happens to an architect’s brain as it crosses the gorge between carefree
youth and stately age [, presumably on a bridge of their own devising], there is no question that the
lessons granted by life lend themselves to certain trends in thought.

Do these changes manifest as the brain undergoes physical development? When examining an
end product, to what extent does the presence of an older hand differ from that one half its age? The
former might begin to tremble a bit more while sketching the ghosts of multiple decades, but its function
does not change over time.

But doe the marks derive from the richness of lived experience more than crow’s feet? Does the
variety of experiences come from age, or changes in geography?

Perhaps the answer lies in the shift of the priorities that come and go with each step in the life
cycle. Do the arrival and departure of responsibilities of career, home, and family have a discernible
effect on the design process?