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	title of this thread your message What separates them is not scale or technology but method. If it were scale the large airbus or any large aircraft for that matter would be part of architecture etc. It is part of architectural history that the balance between engineering and design has shifted continuously. Gothic and renaissance architects were also in charge of engineering, including the design of small and large tools (Brunellechi was one of the masters in crossing the disciplines. He was not only one of the sculptors of the doors of the Florence baptistery; he also designed the Duomo and the famous structure that made the building of the cupola possible) Early modernist architects were still very much in the forefront of technical developments in the use of concrete, design of curtain walls, innovative construction like Gaudi in his search for Catalan identity. Since his early experiments with rubber sheets programmed to serve as versatile casting forms for concrete shells, Renzo Piano has never clearly made a distinction between architecture and engineering, so the question that dcwilson is raising hardly applies in his case. I have not seen the California Academy of science building?otherwise I am sure dc and I would have visited it together?so I can only admire the analysis dc is sharing with us and add very little to it. But the general question is one of the most important ones architects and anybody concerned with architecture could ask. Yes architecture has grown to be only skin deep. With few exceptions, what we as willing or un-willing architectural consumers have to put up with is architectural cosmetics. To support that point I would defy anybody to find in any architectural magazine an analysis of the CAS building that shows the kind of depth and width that dcwilson?s contribution to the DA forum is showing. My personal opinion on the significance of the Georges Pompidou, the Paul Klee Museum or any other Renzo Piano building is not very interesting in this discussion but I would like to contribute with the idea that we do not need architects if we had good engineers, nor do we need engineers if we have good architects or designers or any other combination we can think of. It is an invention of early 18th century to divide the ?how? (engineering) from the ?why?(arts) I always understood that design was the reconciliation of both ?why do you make it? and ?how do you make it? associated web images (optional) associated web link (optional) your email your password create a forums account \| you forgot your password?