On the Concept of Intellectual Property
Challenging the prevailing premise of architectural authorship
P.M. Vida (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
H Sohn – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
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Abstract
Among many other aspects, digitalisation and an increasingly globalised collaborative society are challenging the outdated premise of the solitary architect as an authoritarian genius and thus the author of his work. Several theorists and architectural scholars have consistently discussed the issue of authorship (in architecture), as this question addresses a fundamental question to the essence of and engagement in the discipline. As both the artistic and the scientific inherent notions of the profession attribute different functions to the user, architecture appears as a hybrid, mediating intellectual property of the thought, ownership of the product and collective property through engagement. The interpretative dependency of each component’s implication on the notion of authorship is sequentially explored in its linear allocation. Essentially, the whole discourse pivots on the chicken-and-egg argument, for the existence of an author implies per se the emergence of a previously non-existent idea. Establishing a collaborative essence of thinking and a separation of the profession's scope from the entitlement to the built product can result in both the service group’s economic stability and the preservation of cultural production.