Exhibitors Herald World (Jul-Sep 1929)

ugust 3, 1929 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD 69 SILVERSHEEI Guaranteed THE AMERICAN SOUND SCREEN— As all SILVERSHEET products is absolutely guaranteed to give entire satisfaction. It is guaranteed to give both satisfactory projection and sound results — leaving nothing to be desired in either— samples will be gladly submitted on request. AMERICAN SILVERSHEEI COMPANY SAINT LOUIS, MO., U.S.A. L? spit; %U*4 ^ ^L^iUi^Ui, ^^^>l^>U^^^U^)M^)^^^j^ tment heads and directors to agree on an :'angement. They would have a meeting, i:ke up their minds that a certain scheme s O.K., and then make definite authorizain for starting the working drawings. hen these would be about half completed :neone would get a semibright new idea ;i they would have another meeting and the i ultant controversy would absolutely scrap ; the work that had been done. 't was the most peculiar and remarkable i;e which ever came under the writer's obrvation. Those plans cost a little more than Wo for the actual drawings without any :)ervision, due -to no fault of the architect 1: accountable to the natural confusion of ' inds many." It was a case of too many nks resulting in a sadly flavored pottage. .id the architect proceeded under the or(iary form of architectural contact it would be resulted in great loss to him and might idly have resulted in a most unpleasant situ;an and probably an expensive lawsuit. \s it was the Board of Directors paid for 'at they got. They were penalized for their filiation and inability to make up their nds. Fortunately enough they were suffimtly good sports to admit this condition :1 they justified themselves on the ground t.t it was cheaper to make changes on paper t n it was in the finished building, and they t st have an arrangement which was ecomically possible and one upon which all oartment heads could agree. The building 1; not yet been built. When the project is l ived, the Irish wake will probably start all <:r again and that right merrily. The advantage of this particular form of dtract to the client who can make up his i id and stick to a definite course of action is t t be is rewarded for those decisive mental ulities. On the other hand, if he is a Vue, confused thinker, indecisive and vacil' ng, he pays for these qualities of thought, f 1 not the architect. Then too it brings this i )ortant fact home to the owner — he comes t regard the direct labor of draftsmen emI yed in making his plans in much the same r nner as he does the work of mechanics in £ aally constructing a building — he sees c irly this architectural labor as an essential part of his structure. Whereas under the old system he is inclined to regard the entire work of the architect as of doubtful necessity and in a nature of pure luxury. Because of the writer's personal experience he naturally prefers that form of contract to which the owner pays the drafting costs, plus the overhead, plus a profit to the architect. In this case the cost of the supervision^ of the building to be based on the actual^ time expended by the architect or his superintendent, plus the overhead and plus the profit. Incidentally, you will find under this system that you will have to provide for enough visits to the job per week to adequately supervise the building, because when the owner comes to the realization it is costing him a certain amount every time you visit his job, he is liable, in a burst of economy, to decide that he needs you less often than he actually does. On the other hand, if he is that egotistical type of client who considers his job the most important that is being constructed in the community, and if you happen to be unfortunate enoueh to be workinsr under the ordinary form of percentage contract, he will try to monopolize much more of your time than is justified. There are many advantages to this new type of contract against the old percentage form and it will be well for the progressive architect to devote a good deal of thought and analysis to this question and decide upon the one under which he prefers to operate. However, let us sound a word of warning. If you decide to use this new method, don't fool yourself about a single item of your overhead for every such item you miss is bound to come out of your profit account. Of course, this is true with either type of contract, but it becomes particularly apparent if yon operate under this new form of agreement. In analyzing the various schedules of charges and professional procedure we wish to make an acknowledgment to the Royal Canadian Society of Architects. We felt they had evolved a schedule of charges and code of procedure which was worded in a simple straightforward and highly effective manner. Also, we wish to acknowledge that we gave careful consideration to the documents of the American Institute of Architects, and covered several of the points which they brought up, so our schedule is based upon the carefully thought out documents of these two great architectural associations. We feel that our schedule practically covers all of the points which frequently come up in controversy between architect and client. This schedule of the Architects' League of Hollywood has been very effectively used in the following manner. For example : the architect would write a brief letter setting forth the location of the building, the fees to be charged, and the terms and time of payment. In the letter he would then state, "any further points in this agreement not specifically stated in this letter, shall be governed by a Manual of Professional Charges of the Architects' League of Hollywood, a copy of which is attached herewith." Then the architect would sign the letter in the customary manner. In the lower left-hand corner would appear the words — "The above proposition is approved and accepted" and the owner would sign below these words. This would make a very simple contract and one easy to get signed. If, for example, the contract had contained four or five pages of highly involved legal phraseology, the owner would suspiciously rush out to his lawyer to have it dissected to find out if there wasn't a catch in it. The lawyer in attempting to earn his fee would raise a lot of points of controversy and ultimately it might easily result in the architect losing the job. Whereas, if this simple contract, as above stated, were used, it would be comparatively easy to get the desired contract signed. The reason was simple when you stop to analyze it. The owner, looking over the. two printed pages saw that it bore the endorsement of a recognized architectural society, and he assumed this to be standard procedure among architects, and he accepted it as a matter of course. If, on the other hand, the architect had had a typewritten copv of this identical schedule made, and then asked his client to sign it, this gentleman would immediately jump to the conclusion that these were a lot of special requirements of that individual architect and he