Hearing Noah discuss his work on transforming Collegetown (among other parts of Ithaca) gave me insight into the realities of being an architect. I tend to be more of a traditionalist when it comes to architecture, and I fear that modern architecture will become outdated looking quickly. In my home city, I fear that new building development is modifying the landscape for the worse. I don’t have as strong of an opinion on Collegetown considering that the vibe of this area isn’t particularly well-defined or beautiful to begin with.

I asked Noah about how he accounts how building will appear with time with all of these thoughts in the back of mind. Noah’s response was that an architect it can be very difficult to gauge how a building will age so he tries to focus on using natural materials and fulfilling developer requests. This response was interesting to me because while an architect is in charge of their own designs it sounds to me like a big component of the job is satisfying what a client wants and trying to fit one’s own aesthetic into the confines of a description developed by this client. Noah, however, seems to go a good job of including his own perspective into his work and showed some designs for Collegetown which even resemble already existing buildings in their finishing and materials. I believe that his work is conscientious of the landscape they are located in.

I still have qualms about modern architecture after the talk in my own city after the talk, this time because I think it could be possible that architects who are concerned about the look of a piece have to consider their business first-most. This could mean that stark, modern buildings back home are created because developers want a design which they can be certain young professionals in my city will be attracted to regardless of how they clash with the city’s old roots. These buildings back home are kind of like the fifteen-minute fashion of architecture. I wonder how permanent these buildings will be.