Performing architecture: Talking ‘architect’ and ‘client’ into being

Abstract

This paper explores how the roles or social categories ‘architect’ and ‘client’ are performed by participants as they meet to talk about the design of a crematorium. The analytic framework through which the interaction is studied is Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA). By attending to the participants' talk through the perspectives of MCA, we can see how questions and answers, attributions of building ownership, and assessments of the building are enacted in ways that enable the participants to competently perform as ‘architect’ and ‘client’. Thus, as well as the participants' interaction helping to shape the actual form of the building, it also helps to shape and perpetuate ideas concerning what it is to ‘do’ architecture.