Oase 113: Authorship

What does the author’s ’owning’ of a project mean? And does this sense of ownership still prevail in contemporary architecture culture? Is the concept of individual authorship not a cul-de-sac, preventing the processes of invention and innovative thinking often necessary for addressing a practice that is more collaborative than ever? What, then, might be the essential argument for retaining the concept of authorship in architecture today? Perhaps the most resounding argument is this: authorship is not only an act that implies originality, it is also a deeply felt commitment to a work that until its realisation belongedonly to the author, but to which he or she is also completely devoted.