The Architecture Lobby (TAL) is a grassroots organization of architectural workers — architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, students, and others — advocating for just labor practices and an equitable (built) environment. We believe that building solidarity between architectural workers and fostering capacity for organizing labor is a critical tool in confronting the white supremacist and heteropatriarchal systems woven through the architecture and design fields.
50 Woodward Ave, New Haven, CT 06512
How we organize
Together, we organize through local chapters and national working groups linked by a central Organizing Committee (OC) to move towards structural change. Chapters self-organize projects and events of specific concern to their locality and their chapter membership.
Similarly, members come together around shared issues to form working groups that typically meet virtually. Working groups pursue a wide variety of projects and campaigns that have ranged from the development of an anti-capitalist model for architectural education to literature on the Green New Deal to organizer training for architectural workers interested in unionizing their workplace.
Each local chapter is represented at the OC by chapter stewards, and each working group by coordinators. The OC meets virtually on the second Thursday of each month, and meetings are open to all members. These meetings are an opportunity for members to stay informed on what TAL activities are taking place across all scales and locations.
manifesto
We are precarious workers. These are our demands:
- Build worker power and collective agency through unions and cooperatives.
- A living wage, benefits, job security, and wage transparency across the discipline.
- No more free labor; no unpaid internships, unpaid overtime, or unpaid competitions.
- Center the importance of labor in our understanding of architecture. Architecture is work!
- Demand compensation based on the value and impact our work creates.
- End oppression based on gender within and enabled by the discipline.
- Confront the complicity of architecture in racism. Confront racism in our workplaces.
- Design for the full spectrum of human life. Universal design is not an afterthought.
- Challenge the concept of licensure. Expand the right to practice.
- Celebrate the collective process of producing architecture. Demystify architecture as the work of a solo creative genius.
- Climate justice as the basis of all architectural work. There can be no sustainable future without sustainable labor practices.
- Fight for democratic alternatives to the capitalist system of development.
Listen to dozens of Lobby members read the manifesto at Congress 2023.
Join us
The Architecture Lobby is organized as a decentralized network of Chapters around the country. The Chapters are comprised by Lobby members forming diverse groups of architectural students, young, mid-career, and senior professionals, firm owners, design journalists, and academics, and are led by rotating Chapter Stewards.
Getting involved in The Architecture Lobby is as easy as becoming a member. TAL members enjoy a number of benefits:
- Access to our discussion platform (mobilize.io), which you can use to connect with hundreds of other members past and present and keep up-to-date with events
- A vote on resolutions and bylaw amendments at our bi-annual Members Congress
- A direct stake in the actions, projects, and direction of the organization.
Support us
The Architecture Lobby is comprised of two nonprofit organizations, both incorporated in the State of Connecticut:
- The Architecture Lobby, Inc: a 501(c)6: members, campaigns and projects are part of this organization. This organization is funded solely through membership dues, which allows us to engage in political activities and lobbying.
- The Architecture Initiative, Inc: a 501(c)3, is financed through tax-exempt donations, and the sales of merchandise, publications, etc., and provides funding for The Architecture Lobby’s educational activities. This organization has no members, only a Board of Directors, of which some overlap with The Architecture Lobby’s BoD.
If you would like to make a donation in support of The Architecture Initiative, please follow the button below. Your tax-deductible gift will help the Architecture Initiative carry out its educational mission to promote the value of architecture and design in the community and the value of work in the field of architecture through public forums and other educational projects.