The quote above is excerpted from an email that I sent to our ArchVoices Essay Competition Committee early last week, preparing us all for an intense two weeks of reading and evaluating the 180 essays submitted to this year's competition (15% more than last year). In addition to entries from 35 U.S. states (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), the 2004 competition attracted essays from young professionals in 12 other countries (nearly twice as many as last year): Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

What's in a name?

The 180 essay titles alone provide a fascinating glimpse into the minds of young professionals across the country and around the world, and thus also provide a glimpse into the future of our profession. Today's issue of ArchVoices provides you access to the complete text of each 500-word essay proposal, listed by title.

Readers' Choice

This year, we've added a "Readers' Choice" feature that will allow ArchVoices readers from Milwaukee to Mumbai to vote for your favorite essays. Click here to cast a vote for the submission that you find most intriguing, provocative, or well-written. Or select from the list that follows. Up to 12 overall winners will be eligible for special prizes, including a full set of Archiflash ARE study cards or a $100 gift certificate from Princeton Architectural Press.

Thank you sincerely to all of you who are participating in this competition, either by writing or by reading and discussing these essays, and thank you as well to our sponsors and committee members who have made this dialogue possible.

Matt Ostanik, Assoc. AIA
Intern Architect (West Des Moines, IA)
Chair, 2004 ArchVoices Essay Competition

180 Voices



1. Inspiring?

2. Architectural Design of the Architects Systems

3. The First Act of Subversion

4. Action-arch

5. An Intern's Manifesto: The Search for Our Voice

6. CNN and the intern architect: an analogy

7. Reality is not singular, and not real.

8. Getting To Repose...

9. Students of Words

10. The Value of the Professional Architect

11. Megalomaniacs of the World, Unite

12. Architectural Motivation

13. Public Confessions & Spaces

14. Endless Possibilities

15. Poverty in Iranian Architecture

16. Interning Archi-tect or CAD-tect?

17. Untitled

18. A Process Towards Evolution

19. Untitled

20. Howard Roark, Intern

21. Easy Doesn't Do It

22. Immediacy Within Architecture

23. The Adventurer's Guide to Architecture

24. Untitled

25. Architecture: Virtual experience or experience of Virtue

26. A Holistic Approach to the Field of Architecture

27. Titles and Meaning

28. The New Pioneers

29. Fusing Architecture: Naiveness, Theory, and Technicality

30. The Architect as Urban Designer

31. Sprinting towards Engineered Values

32. Continuity

33. Realigning with Reality: Towards a More Relevant Profession

34. Fostering A Dream

35. What Licensure got to do with it?

36. Get Me Off This Glacier!!

37. Architectural Registration and its Diversity Vortex

38. Members Only? How do young designers find Professional Identity?

39. Modern outlook, how to keep it

40. Driving Mr. Libeskind

41. Touching a Single Life

42. Transcending Boundaries

43. Hazards On: Potholes and Poetry on the Road to Licensure

44. Intern Almighty

45. No One Told Me It Would Be This Much Fun...

46. Crafted Separation

47. Vibrations

48. Sarah Doesn't Know AutoCad

49. Filling Up the Empty Vessel, a Few Thoughts

50. The continuous flow of life and Architecture

51. The Tradition of Architectural Internship

52. Seeking Symbiosis in Architecture

53. "As For Me and My House": Who Should Architects Serve?

54. Life on the Outside

55. Thinking Outside the Box: Embracing Changes in the Architecture Profession

56. A Paradoxical Relationship

57. The Business of Architecture

58. The Architect and North American Suburb

59. What Sets Us Apart, What Brings Us Together

60. Internship and the Polarization of Architectural Education

61. Rethinking the Way We Make Architecture

62. Time to have fun and rethink

63. Assimilation of Multi-cultural Architects in America - A Slow Process

64. Are architects the lords of space?

65. Rectifying Two Worlds of Learning

66. Collective Responsibility: For Awareness

67. The Architecture of Walmart

68. The Social Art of Architecture

69. Architectural Obstructions - tools for generating a mutual creativity

70. See IDP run

71. The ideal of architecture and the idea of the architect.

72. Untitled

73. The Spark of Architecture

74. With Blinders On

75. What Have I Done?

76. The decision of becoming a Thoroughbred Architect

77. Continuing Education Through Professional Practice

78. The Rule of Thirds

79. The Marginalization of the Architect in Contemporary Culture

80. Getting to Know You.

81. Teach a Man to Fish

82. The Steps of Our Cathedrals

83. Tomorrow

84. A Manifesto of Professional Aspirations - Bridging the Disconnect

85. Untitled

86. In Transition

87. Creative Innovation - Think Different!

88. Faceless Profession

89. Knowledge through Study and Knowledge through Practice

90. Value of a Humble Architect(ure)

91. Relationships: Interns et al

92. Time for Architecture to Save the World

93. Comprehension, Control and Conduct

94. Prelude to Specialization

95. Architecture. Noun. Art.

96. Material Architecture in the Virtual World

97. Passion and Excellence: What it Means to Become an Architect

98. Streetscape Encounter

99. A Brilliant Career

100. Embracing Change from Internship to Professionalism

101. Intern Architects and the Future

102. Line of Sight

103. Self-Served

104. Cut, Copy, & Paste

105. Obliquity and the Architecture Profession

106. Shadows

107. Honesty

108. Past Precedent

109. Hold onto the Architect who can write!

110. The Social Act of Architecture

111. A Harsh Reality Or Just Plain Soul Crushing

112. Internship as the Intersection of Meaning and Identity

113. Untitled

114. When Words Fail Us: Defining "Intern-Architect" in the 21st Century

115. Long-cut

116. A Lullaby For The Next Strokes

117. Untitled

118. An Emerging Field in Architecture

119. The Spirit of Architecture

120. Blessed but not depressed

121. Thick Architecture

122. Rethink?

123. Rediscovering the Citadel

124. Turning Tools

125. A Simple Statement : Goals

126. quiet spaces

127. The Diversity of Interns: Key to the Future

128. Service for Society

129. The Changing of Ideals

130. The Crates, Architectural Charades, and an Opinion

131. The New Architect: A look at the profession

132. Experiencing globalization as an intern architect

133. The Undervalued Architect

134. The New Face(s) of Architecture

135. The Road to Architecture

136. A Dream Called Reality

137. Youth looks forward, age looks back: a love-letter to internship

138. re-Defining 'Architecture' Today

139. Stretching Ideals

140. Among and All Around

141. Who am I?

142. Values or Practice

143. Two ends of a spectrum

144. Been There, Done That: The Professional Need for Mentoring

145. New Millenium Intern

146. Foundation to the Finishes- Todays Architect

147. Too Often: Hand-me-down Architecture

148. Re-Organization of the Architect in Society via Licensure

149. (a/A)rchitects?

150. Systems Thinking: The Basis for a New Professional Framework

151. Struggle in Realizing

152. Permanent Internship

153. Binding the Seams

154. Recipe for Success; or Why I'm Still not a Kindergarten Teacher

155. Mold Your Mentor, Or How to Activate a Partnership

156. What are we doing here?

157. Apprentice

158. To Know Myself Through Them

159. Architecture Found: Yes, I Can(opy)

160. Boundless Architecture

161. Intersection?

162. Internal Mechanics

163. Architecture: A Layered Approach

164. Eating the Young: The Profession of Architecture Regarding it's Interns

165. About us

166. Whole Interns Whole Architects

167. Shaping our Future

168. The end of the beginning of the Executive Artistic Architect

169. To inspire and be inspired

170. The New Profession[al]

171. Will we still need to sign drawings?

172. Question, Change, Make New: Responsibilities of Architectural Interns

173. An Intern's Dream: Real Life Inspired

174. Professional Architect: Redefining the architectural profession.

175. Architect Redux

176. The Drawing as Lens

177. Jumping into the Dark: Turning Practice into Praxis

178. Pathways of Architecture-Symbolic or Temporal

179. The Importance of a Perfect Match

180. The Well Traveled Road to Mediocrity

As always, we welcome your thoughts by email at editors@archvoices.org.