'Remember I'm the Bloody Architect!' Architects, organizations and discourses of profession

There is a growing consensus that professional work faces an uncertain future. However, debates have tended to take a macro focus, underplaying the role of individuals’ accounts of their working lives. In this paper we focus on UK architecture, examining how public and private sector architects construct the purpose and process of their occupation, using the concept of discourse to investigate the different versions expressed in individuals’ accounts. We argue that architecture is constituted as creative endeavour, business activity and public service. The discourses mobilised and the occasions of their production reflect architects’ orientations to the diverse chalenges facing theirprofession, particularly concerning the role of creativity in the purpose and practice of architecture.