Tooting Your Own Architectural Horn Via Coffee Table Books

Saying that architects have some degree of ego is like saying that sand is usually sandy; it’s a given. There’s ego in any sort of creative endeavor, right? But this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald makes an interesting distinction in “Architects Are Egoists By Their Own Design.” It concerns the strange phenomenon of architects writing big heavy coffee table books about their own work, with mainly lots and lots of photos included. Not so much an autobiography, but in open direct praise of the thing they built.