Frank Gehry, quoted in Business Week: 

"I’ve always wanted to figure out [how] to just do the sketch, get paid, and get out of there." 

While the notion of getting paid to only do the thing you most enjoy is appealing, this quote highlights one of the most common dichotomies in architecture: The art versus the science.

Is architecture an art?  It results in arguably beautiful artifacts with the lasting power of perhaps thousands of years (eg. the Parthenon).  So much of it though is also forgettable and demolished in only a few years to make way for something new - is that art?  Architecture is, though, also a profession governed by structural and life safety codes, organized by the functional  needs of the user - these are practical concerns.  A successful building must not only be engineered, but it must also be buildable - constructable in the real world.

Metropolis Magazine's Philip Nobel goes so far as to say Daniel Liebeskind is "not, exactly, an architect":

My hunch was that Libeskind’s characteristic lines were an artist’s tic—a shape he liked—but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So that day I asked him, “Is there an architectural idea behind your use of tubular extrusions in so many projects, a particular spatial imperative you’re pursuing?” “No,” he answered flatly, “that form comes from my drawings.” I remember following up a bit, just to make sure, but he was comfortable with his answer. I respected Libeskind’s honesty—he was admitting to a short-cut taken by nearly everyone who has ever designed a building—but in that moment I decided that he was not, exactly, an architect. Architects worthy of the name don’t traffic in a priori shapes, don’t subvert their clients’ needs for preconceived artistic agendas, don’t make buildings born from the love of lines, not space. There’s another name for such designers: we call them formalists.

In a post entitled "The Most Important Characteristic of an Architect", the folks at Build LLC highlight the critical quality of real-world problem solving skills (no doubt a product of their design-build focus):

That architects have the knowledge base, aptitude and drive to figure out built-solutions is the reason that architecture is a profession rather than an obscure extension of the arts.

There is a wide range of architects, from those architects whose practice is almost purely theoretical (eg. Lebbeus Woods) to those whose is almost purely utilitarian - the architect who designs electrical substation buildings, for example. Every architect will fall somewhere on this spectrum between art and engineering. Whom though, do we serve?  Without a client, what is our work but drawing?  It is in the completion of a project, bringing the design into reality that I get the greatest satisfaction.

This post raises perhaps more questions than it answers.  More to come.