Imprints of a world to come: conformity and survival of Chicago architecture firms, 1928–2000

Abstract

Do new architecture firms face pressure to conform with the structures and strategies of leading firms? If so, how do these pressures evolve over time? This study focuses on the organisational and institutional factors that condition, delimit, and inform the practice of architecture, and on the intertwined and apparently contradictory dynamics of conformity and innovation. Empirical support for this investigation is drawn from the entire population of architecture firms practicing in the Chicago metropolitan area from 1928 to 2000, a period that featured a rich and heterogenous population of firms and organisational forms, as well as a climate of profound environmental transformation. We drew on a range of archival sources to build an original database on the complete population of 3,882 Chicago-area architecture firms present over the period of study. We used quantitative methods to analyse how firms’ conformity with strategic and structural norms in the profession affected their likelihood of survival over time. For firms in our study, did conformity at birth provide an advantage? Or was it instead hazardous for new firms to adopt the prevailing structures and strategies of a changing environment? Might it have been more advantageous — to the degree that this was possible — to bear the imprint of an emerging condition and to conform with the leading traces of a world to come rather than with the practices of the current order? We suggest that conformity pressures can evolve; what may initially look like dangerous nonconformity may, in the long run, come to be seen as prescient innovation. Our study adds to the growing body of quantitative research in architecture while also contributing to our understanding of how architects navigated the competing pressures of conformity and innovation. For architects engaged in practice, these results may provide useful insights on how to stand out in a population of competing firms whilst simultaneously fitting in with the explicit and tacit norms of the architectural profession.