OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 



131 



charge for his services, he would be pre- 

 cisely in the position of the ordinary 

 "cost-plus" contractor : and if the charge 

 for thus furnishing the capital and his 

 other services be reasonable and clearly 

 defined in advance, it is difficult to see 

 exactly how he has crossed the Rubicon 

 and entered the field of clearly and in- 

 herently unprofessional conduct. 



Take notice that I do not approve such 

 a procedure as a general one for land- 

 scape architects, for reasons which I will 

 set forth. Rut I do say that even such 

 an agency contract as the last seems to 

 me. in strict logic, not necessarilv unpro- 

 fessional per se in special cases. 



The primary objection as a practical 

 matter to extending the scope of a land- 

 scape architect's business far in that di- 

 rection is that it involves a constantly 

 increasing emphasis upon purely execu- 

 tive and managerial activities, the devo- 

 tion of a constantly increasing share of 

 his time and energy to such activities, 

 and a corresponding reduction of the 

 share of his time and energy devoted to 

 problems of design. 



Now the reason for the existence of a 

 profession of landscape architecture is to 

 provide people highly skilled in the Art 

 of Design applied to landscape problems, 

 and having sufficient executive ability to 

 secure the eflFective realization of their 

 designs. And in so far as development 

 of his executive activities tends to with- 

 draw emphasis from a landscape archi- 

 tect's function as a designer, and material- 

 ly diminishes that eflFective concentration 

 upon problems of design which is the 

 onl}' means of developing his skill there- 

 in, it tends to convert him from a land- 

 scape architect into something else — 

 commonly called a contractor — irrespec- 

 tive of whether he practices contracting 

 in a professional manner under agency 

 contracts or whether he practices it com- 

 mercially and speculatively under lump 

 sum or unit price contracts. 



The same sort of reasons which make 

 desirable the degree of specialization that 

 distinguishes landscape architects from 

 architects, and that distinguishes both of 

 them from engineers, makes it highly im- 

 portant to maintain and develop the 

 specialization and separation of landscape 

 architects from "contractors." Under 

 circumstances which make it difficult or 

 impossible to obtain the services of com- 

 petent "contractors" for landscape work, 

 a landscape architect is justified in going 

 further in assuming executive responsi- 

 bilities, professionally and as an agent, 

 than is ordinarily wise or proper; but it 

 must not be forgotten that even where 

 competent contractors are scarce it is 

 to the interest of the profession and of 

 its clients to develop good landscape con- 

 tractors rather than to discourage their 

 development by performing the functions 

 proper to them in combination with the 

 special functions peculiar to landscape 

 architects. 



In other words a landscape architect 

 ought to keep clear of undertaking, even 

 in a professional manner, the executive 

 functions proper to a "contractor" just as 

 far as he can do so without manifest and 

 substantial injury to the interests which 

 are confided to him by his clients. 



Looking at the matter from the most 

 selfish point of view, it is normally a 

 short-sighted policy on the part of the 

 landscape architect to undertake what 

 are properly "contractor's" functions, for 

 the mere sake of earning the compensa- 

 tion which goes with these extra jobs, or 

 even through an easy-going acquiescence 

 in the request of a client, just as it would 

 be to undertake the functions of a real 

 estate agent or a hotel keeper. Working 

 at such "side lines" is apt to seem a con- 

 fession that he can not earn his salt as a 

 landscape architect, and it certainly tends 

 to spread him out so thin as to lose the 

 advantages which come from proper pro- 

 fessional specialization. This is not the 



