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According to the article, Donald Hackl is a great guy who through hard work and dedication and a little bit of luck made it to the peak of a challenging profession. How heartwarming. Hello! Look at the old guy. He wears double-breasted suits and bow ties. He’s a walking, talking archaic stereotype if there ever was one. He’s one who marched lockstep in accordance with what he was told an architect should be. He was “born” to be an architect and is so focused that he eats architecture for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
A better cover story would have talked about how Hackl and the soon-to-be-retired crop of elder architects he represents wrecked the profession. Somehow these dorks got swept up in a fanatical, cultlike movement. They all wanted to be like Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. Their uniform is round glasses and bow ties or sometimes turtleneck sweaters with patches on the elbows. Their legacy is an industry plagued by incompetence, inadequate compensation, and old men hanging on beyond their prime.
