221225 FC

Two years ago, during my architecture diploma thesis, a professor asked us a series of questions to define ourselves as future architects. One of the questions that most fuelled the debate was the following: Do you need to have an ego to be a good architect?

Most of my fellow students agreed that you don’t need to have an ego to be a good architect. In fact, having an ego is detrimental to the good practice of architecture. It is indeed generally frowned upon to “have an ego”, at least in France.

I think that the two characteristics are decorrelated, having an ego does not influence the quality of the architect, at least not directly (being a good architect is an endless, fascinating subject, which I will not discuss in this note).

The ego is the representation and awareness of oneself. The ego is the thinking subject, the self. To have ego is to position oneself in relation to others. It is also having confidence in the relevance of one’s voice, and thinking that one’s thoughts are at least as interesting as those of others, and worth sharing.

Having an ego is often associated with egotrip. The one who shouts out his thought because it is essential. He think he must change the world. Therefore, this individual who shouts places himself at the centre the world. This is also what fascinates me about French rap.