Why We Worship Dead Architects

The Cult of Architectural Ghosts

If you’ve ever set foot in architecture school, you know the drill: Le Corbusier is gospel. Zaha Hadid is a goddess. Frank Lloyd Wright is untouchable. Every lecture, every textbook, every design philosophy seems to revolve around a handful of names most of them long gone.

But why are we obsessed with dead architects? Why do their ideas dictate how we build, while today’s architects struggle to make their mark? And most importantly is it time to stop worshipping the past and start shaping the future?

The Architectural Canon: A Hall of Untouchable Names

Architecture, like art and literature, has its legends. They’re the ones whose names are carved into syllabi, whose sketches are revered like ancient scripture. But who decided that their work should be immortalized? And does this hero worship hold the industry back?

1. The Power of Myth: How Legends Are Made

The truth is, most starchitects weren’t always geniuses. Their reputations were built just like their buildings strategically.

Figure1

• Le Corbusier wasn’t just a brilliant designer, he was an expert self-promoter who branded himself as the future of architecture (Curtis, 1996).

Figure2

• Frank Lloyd Wright carefully rewrote his own history, downplaying failures and amplifying successes (Huxtable,2004).

• Zaha Hadid fought against decades of sexism to build a mythos around her name, ensuring her place in architectural history (Moore, 2016).

  

  Figure3

But here’s the catch by focusing so much on a handful of past architects, we leave little room for new voices to emerge.

The Problem With Architectural Hero Worship

Loving architectural history is one thing. But idolizing dead architects comes with some serious downsides.

1. Stagnation: Stuck in the Shadows of Giants

If every architect is constantly referencing the past, can anything new ever be created?

o   Example: Modernist Imitation Syndrome – Countless buildings today still mimic Corbusier’s white boxes, decades after they were ground-breaking. The problem? We’re recreating history instead of pushing forward.

2. The Erasure of Alternative Narratives

By focusing only on the big names, we erase the contributions of women, non-Western architects, and radical thinkers who never got the same spotlight.

• Denise Scott Brown (co-architect of Learning from Las Vegas) was overshadowed by her husband, Robert Venturi, despite being an equal creative force (Brown, 1997).

• Balkrishna Doshi, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect from India, was largely overlooked in Western discourse until recent years (Chatterjee, 2018).

• Clara Porset, a Cuban-Mexican designer, was instrumental in Latin American modernism but often left out of architectural history books (Larrinaga, 2021).

  
  

3. The Cult of the Starchitect: A System That Favors Ego Over Collaboration

Most famous architects didn’t work alone but the starchitect system makes it seem like they did. In reality, entire teams of underpaid interns, engineers, and designers made their ideas come to life (Till, 2009).

o   Example: Rem Koolhaas & OMA – His firm, OMA, produces some of the most experimental buildings in the world, but you only ever hear his name attached to them (Moore, 2019).

Breaking the Cycle: The Architects of the Future

If we want architecture to evolve, we need to stop treating the past as sacred and start amplifying new voices, new ideas, and new perspectives.

1. Diversifying the Architectural Canon

Instead of worshipping the same old names, we should be looking at:

• Local architects designing for their communities instead of global prestige.

• Sustainable innovators who prioritize climate-conscious design over aesthetics.

• Collaborative studios that break away from the starchitect ego model.

  
  

2. Letting Go of the “Genius” Myth

o   The best buildings are never the work of one mind they’re collaborations. Instead of celebrating lone geniuses, we should be celebrating the teams and movements that push architecture forward.

o   Example: Assemble (UK) – A collective that won the Turner Prize by working with communities rather than designing for them (Moore, 2016).

3. Learning From the Past, But Not Repeating It

We can respect architectural history without worshipping it. Studying past architects should inspire us to question and evolve, not just imitate and repeat.

Kill Your Architectural Idols

It’s time to stop treating dead architects like gods. The buildings of the future won’t be designed by worshippers of the past they’ll be created by those bold enough to break the cycle.

So next time someone tells you “Le Corbusier would never approve of that”, ask yourself, Do we really need his approval anymore?

References :

• Brown, D. S. (1997). Sexism and the star system in architecture. Harvard Design Magazine, 1(2), 5-11.

• Chatterjee, A. (2018). Balkrishna Doshi: Architect of modern India. Phaidon.

• Curtis, W. (1996). Modern architecture since 1900. Phaidon Press.

• Huxtable, A. (2004). Frank Lloyd Wright: A life. Penguin Books.

• Larrinaga, M. (2021). Clara Porset and the overlooked women of modernism. Architectural Review, 231(5), 112-129.

• Moore, R. (2016). The starchitect problem: How architecture lost its way. The Guardian.

• Moore, R. (2019). Why architecture needs to break free from its dead idols. The Guardian.

• Till, J. (2009). Architecture depends. MIT Press.

  
  

Image References:

o Figure1:  Le Corbusier. [Photograph]. Pinterest. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/68/51/4d/68514dd6a5057a929054517db899ec52.jpg.

o Figure2:  Frank Lloyd Wright. [Photograph]. Pinterest. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d6/78/d5/d678d51aeb88f4813b16a3a404e36e5e.jpg.

o  Figure3: Zaha Hadid. [Photograph]. Pinterest. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/72/77/55/727755ca48221761235f11b6339db5af.jpg.