THE FORMER ARCHITECT

The apartment’s owner and I were walking through the rooms, discussing the details of the project. The place needed more than a new layout and a modern look: it needed new functions as well.

In one room, a painter was quietly smoothing the walls with plaster. At one point, he put down his trowel, turned to us and declared with some gravity:

“I used to work as an architect myself. And, listening to your conversation, I think…”

The client gave me a gentle smile, apologized and asked for a moment.

She went over to the painter and spoke softly but with absolute clarity, making sure I could hear every word:

“My dear former architect… Don’t confuse your roles. You were hired to work on this apartment as a painter. Please do your job properly, and concern yourself with making sure the architect on this project accepts your work without penalties or asking you to redo it. When you are the architect on one of my projects, I’ll discuss with you the questions I’m discussing with my architect now. Please don’t interrupt us.”

Then she returned to me, apologized once more for the pause and said calmly:

“Sorry, I needed to settle a small technical matter. Shall we continue?”

Two people stood in that room, stunned by what had just happened.

The painter, because she had not sworn at him; with surgical precision and without raising her voice, she had stripped him of his claim to expertise.

The architect, because he had seen the cool, merciless ease with which the client had dealt with a matter outside the contractor’s area of responsibility.

Author: Gleb Ivlev / G Un