by Douglas L Steidl, FAIA
AIA President

When I was running for the office of AIA President, my stump speech concluded with the words: “I believe we can change the world.” An ambitious sentiment perhaps, but the over-arching challenge of the phrase shouldn’t obscure or hide the key word—“we.”

During my second year as a director from the Ohio Valley Region, the AIA National Board unanimously adopted the AIM Report. At the time, I remember being struck by the eloquence of the “Introduction” written by AIM Task Force Chair Gray Plosser, FAIA. The sentence that sticks with me to this day reads: “The AIA is the only instrument that can effectively and with forethought influence the future shape of the profession.”

I read Gray’s words as something of a rebuke and a challenge: The 13 architects who founded the AIA back in 1857 created a powerful instrument for change. At the beginning of the 21st century, the power was still there. But were we really living up to our potential?

My colleagues on the Board were similarly affected. The AIM report provoked deep introspection and ultimately led to a transformation of this organization by the national leadership and national component staff that has been accelerating in recent years. [download the AIM report, 170 KB PDF]

All around us
What’s the evidence? Consider this:

• Today the national component is guided by a clearly written strategic plan of four strategies, strategies that ensure continuity and serve as a model for coordinated action throughout the AIA. [download the AIA Strategic Plan, 200 KB PDF]
• Our public policies have a similar clarity that more effectively advances our core values—collaboration, environmentally sound design, and service to the community. [link]
• In the arena of Government Advocacy, a new energy delivers results on behalf of AIA members. Last fall, the Congress passed and the president signed a business tax bill that included a new tax cut for architects. Also last fall, the president signed the Economic Development Administration Reauthorization Act, which includes a “brightfields” provision that AIA Government Advocacy had actively supported through its Grassroots Program. AIA Government Advocacy also was successful in its fight to oppose repeal of the 10 percent historic rehabilitation tax credit program. I could cite many other items on this front, but the bottom line would still be the same: At every component of this organization, AIA Government Advocacy is more consistently and effectively hitting the ball over the fence. [link]
• Knowledge, the currency of the 21st century, has become the coin of the AIA member’s realm. The latent potential of the Institute’s fragmented PIAs has been realized in the emerging network of Knowledge Communities, which are taking a leadership role in providing the information architects need to respond to the information revolution that is transforming practice. At the same time, after years of talk, the Institute is actively involved in research that is beginning to define in quantitative terms the impact of design decisions. [link]
• There is also more action these days about the ways in which AIA members can engage the public and its elected leaders in realizing the shared goal of more sustainable, healthier, safer, and more beautiful communities. The new AIA Center for Communities by Design is a catalyst, convener, and a source of information that helps AIA members work with citizens and other stakeholders to envision and create more livable communities. [link]
• And because there is a new respect for collaboration, as mandated by the AIM Report, great progress has been made in working more purposefully and in a more coordinated manner with the essential collateral and professional organizations with which the AIA partners—NCARB, NAAB, ACSA, and AIAS, as well as AGC, ASLA, and NSPE.

At all levels
A couple of things to keep in mind: None of this was achieved by a single person or a few people, but by a team guided by a clear purpose and a renewed commitment to service. It’s happened at the national component. And I know it’s happening among the states and locally. That’s the “we” I talked about earlier. We are changing our world.

But we have really only begun to put our arms around the challenge of being “the only instrument that can effectively and with forethought influence the future shape of our profession.” What we have achieved together should be seen for what I believe it is—the platform from which we are challenged to move together toward greater heights. What will take us from here to a more visionary, engaged, and results-oriented future will be, paradoxically, a new appreciation of an event from the past—the founding of the AIA in 1857.

Unique opportunity
More than an historic milestone, the AIA’s 150th anniversary in 2007 is a unique opportunity for new advocacy and public awareness initiatives that have the potential of changing our profession and the world. The concept that’s taking shape will leverage two strategies: first, a re-discovery and celebration of what the AIA has achieved in shaping a profession and, through its members, shaping communities of every size across this land. This will include exhibitions, tours, open houses, the collection of oral and written histories, proclamations by public officials, and the creation of a national Architecture Week.

But, most importantly, the emphasis for recognizing the 150th anniversary of the AIA is a commitment to advocacy. Planning includes committing to building an ongoing legacy by developing with the public a blueprint for the future of our communities. This will include a focus on community assessment; and relationship building with public officials, community leaders, and other local organizations for the express purpose of enhancing the quality of our built environments so that everyone’s quality of life is improved.

More details will come out in the months ahead as all of us—local, state, and national—embark in our own way but collaboratively to develop the supporting programs and the allocation of resources that will in 2006 put in place the needed framework for action in the AIA’s sesquicentennial year and in the years to come.

It took 13 men to create a profession. Imagine what 75,000 of us could do together to change the world.

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