“‘Architecture isn’t a career, it is a calling!’ What? How had we fallen into the same ideology that Christianity used to make the poor feel blessed for their poverty?”

This insightful collection of essays from academics, practitioners and experts sets out to address a question all too rarely discussed, yet it is so fundamental to our discipline: what kind of work is architecture?

It begins with a diagnosis of our current predicament: long work hours, an often religious-like dedication to ‘the art’ of architecture, the prevalence of debt-burdened graduates in unpaid internships and the exploitation of construction workers on large international projects.

While positioning architecture within wider labour discourses in art history and critical theory, this book also speculates on the impact new technologies like BIM and alternative contract and financing models will have on the nature of our work.

It is an exciting addition to the work Deamer is doing as part of The Architecture Lobby and dovetails with the fantastic Feminism and Architecture Symposium she held in Wellington last year.

The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design is hard hitting, yet pragmatic, and it is imperative to read for anyone who considers themselves part of creative labour.