If business is poetry, then numbers are words and sales presentations, marketing meetings and conferences are the salons and literary collaborations of our time.
     -David Byrne, 2003

Corporate visuals, values, and vocabulary are all over contemporary architectural practice today. “Excellence,” “creativity,” “benchmarking,” “best practices,” “customer satisfaction,” and “metrics” are just a few of the many business words used by architects in client presentations, grant proposals, and mission statements, while excel charts, workflow diagrams, and other measurement focused graphics serve as visual supplements. This seminar considers where, when and how managerial and marketing terms were adopted by architects; explores how and why geometric figures were co-opted by business executives and turned into bullet points, flow charts, and market maps; and traces when and where architects took those business graphics and made them their own. We will read literature from American history, management theory, marketing theory, political theory, and anthropology to apprehend architectural practice from a business perspective. We will interpret images from advertising, architectural practice, graphic and information design to grasp business culture’s fascination with circles, triangles, and squares. And we will adopt the “Business Report” as a genre to communicate our insights and conclusions on the often-indistinguishable practices of architecture and business.