The architectural community in Philadelphia, you may or may not be surprised to discover, is surprisingly vast: According to the local American Institute of Architects (AIA) chapter, there are more than 300 firms currently operating in the tri-state area. A good number of those organizations, of course, are well respected throughout the industry, and some even have international reputations. But it's probably safe to say that very few firms here conduct their business in the same manner as that of the Center City-based Friday Architects/Planners, a relatively small shop that celebrated its 40th anniversary last year -- on Groundhog Day, no less.

Friday was launched in 1970 by Don and Arlene Matzkin, and for roughly a year now it has been helmed by Anthony Bracali, a 36-year-old Drexel University grad. Friday, in fact, has been home to a total of seven different partners throughout its decades-long history. But regardless of the managers who've been responsible for steering its proverbial ship, the organization's working philosophy has always been singularly and consistently unique. "I think our firm's basis really starts from the standpoint of community," says Bracali. "And of not believing that as architects, we necessarily know more about how to make buildings in a community than the people who actually live in that community."

Architecture that positively serves the community, in fact, has always been the benchmark by which Friday has judged its success. One of the firm's most recent projects, for instance, involved the design of Paine's Park, the public urban space and skateboarding park that will soon be built next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Other well-known Friday projects include The Caring Center -- a child-care center at 31st and Spring Garden streets -- and the Old Pine Community Center at 4th and Lombard streets. More recently, the firm has busied itself with the design of a master plan for the Reading Terminal Market, and has also designed an incubator for food entrepreneurs known as the Center for Culinary Enterprises.

Flying Kite recently met with Bracali in his office, where he filled us in on his plans to ensure another 40 years for Friday.

Flying Kite (FK): Can you tell me a little bit about how and why the company was first founded?
Anthony Bracali (AB): Well, the founding of the company was based on an idea the partners had at the time: They wanted to work for people in communities and in neighborhoods, to empower them, and to help them shape and create architecture that was meaningful to them. That was the genesis of it. Friday was founded in 1970, and the late '60s were a time when urban centers and public housing were being rethought. And yet a lot of the architectural firms in Philadelphia were still promoting this really high-level, big-scale solution to problems. Architecture at the time was a very top-down oriented kind of practice, and the Friday founders were interested in inverting that.

FK: And how, exactly, did they go about the process of inverting it?
AB: They wanted to work with somebody while sitting on their porch -- they wanted to help people be empowered. So many of the Friday projects have happened like that--through empowerment. And when I say empowerment, I really just mean the architects sitting and talking with people, and engaging them, as opposed to saying: "We're the visionaries, and architecture should be this." (The Friday founders) wanted the vision to come up from below, and it was very successful at the time, because not a lot of firms did that. And that was where the name--Friday--came from. They wanted to find a name that could embody anybody, and the name "Friday" was taken from the slang; the classic example was Joe Friday. It represented the everyman.

FK: How is the firm different than it was 10, 20, or even 30 years ago?
AB: The leadership change is one, but the other thing -- the main thing -- is competition: (When Friday started), there weren't a lot of firms that were working to empower communities through architecture, but that area has really expanded. There are many more firms now that look at non-profits, and community groups, and those types of client organizations, and find them attractive to work with. And the other thing is, a number of the firms doing that in Philadelphia today were actually spawned out of our office.

FK: Really?
AB: Sure: People who worked here, and were exposed to the culture of this place, and then went off and did their own thing.

FK: Can you name a few?
AB: One of them is Voith & Mactavish. Cameron Mactavish worked here for a long time, and that's a firm we end up competing with a lot. They're not completely like us -- they have their own angle on how they present what they do -- but a lot of Mactavish's formative years were spent here. Converse Winkler is another -- one of their partners worked here. So a number of people got exposed to what Friday did, and then went off and tried to adapt that into their own practices.

FK: But 30 or 40 years ago, Friday's community-oriented philosophy wasn't typical at all. When did it become more of a common philosophy in the industry?
AB: I would say in the late '80s and early '90s. There was a recession at that point, and lots of big architectural firms broke up. Communities were also getting empowered with government funding to do capital projects. I think a lot of the competition got busy then as well, because there were a lot of people who left big firms and started their own practices. So I wouldn't characterize Friday as necessarily being the only firm thinking in the way it does. But in the '70s, they were part of a vanguard of people that were thinking, "Let's break out of this big-architect mindset, and let's retrench a little bit and say, 'We're not the visionaries. We're just not.'" And that's an alluring attitude in architecture, because in architectural school, you're promoted to the point where you -- as the designer -- can shape something to be whatever you want it to be. But architecture's messier than that, you know? It's not a clean a process.

FK: When you think about superstar architects, it seems like a lot of those bigger names have something of a God complex. And in a sense, Friday seems to be almost antithetical to that.
AB: Right. Friday was very much intended to be an anti-vision kind of thing. Probably the most famous Philadelphia architect who's written really good stuff about that is Bob Venturi -- his whole practice was built around learning from things that you didn't like. In his book, Learning from Las Vegas, he was saying that as designers, aesthetically, we don't necessarily like the way a place like Las Vegas looks. But if so many people in the public like it, we need to understand why.

FK: How about your history? You studied at Drexel, right?
AB: Right. I didn't really know a lot about Drexel when I applied there, but it was in the city, which I liked. Also, I didn't want to go to school for five years, just learning academically; I was really interested in Drexel's Co-Op. In the Co-Op program there (known as the Two-Plus-Four Option), as an architect, you go to school for two years full-time, then you work part-time for four years. So that was a great thing for me -- it gave me great experience, and it got me out there working sooner than my counterparts, which helped me build experience, and helped me get opportunities. I worked for four years at Venturi Scott Brown, and after that, I worked for a firm that designed research labs at Penn. I also worked for Ewing Cole as an assistant designer on the Phillies ballpark. After that, I'd had something like ten years of experience, and I thought, You know, I could do this -- I could give this a shot on my own. So when I left Ewing Cole, I started my own business, and I didn't really have a plan. I hadn't fully formed what I wanted to do, but I thought, I'll try working for myself.

FK: What was the name of your firm?
AB: It was Anthony Bracali Architecture. I was interested in a lot of clients that were like the clients that Friday has: independent schools; charter schools; nonprofits; community groups -- I had clients like that. So when the opportunity came to come to Friday, it was very natural, because I didn't have to change who I was. I didn't have to give up clients, I didn't have to change projects I was interested in, and I didn't have to wear a coat and a tie to work. I could be myself. It was very attractive in that respect.

FK: Can you talk a bit about the sort of clients Friday has been working with recently?
AB: We've done a lot of projects that are somewhat like The Caring Center, which was an emblematic Friday project: It was highly community-driven, the firm did it on a very tight schedule, and it was a very budget-oriented project. The Enterprise Center's Culinary Center is another good example -- but we've always been a generalist practice. Right now, for instance, we're doing a $33 million hockey arena expansion. And at the same, we're doing small residential projects that are $50,000 or less. So there's a wide spectrum. And that variety, I think, is something the people in our firm like.

FK: Tell me about the best aspect of your job.
AB: The best aspect of my job today is charting the course. In a way, I like the pressure of it being up to me to envision the future: What projects will we do? What clients will we work with? What can we achieve? Where could we go? What could this firm be? That interests me -- the looking ahead interests me.

DAN ELDRIDGE is Flying Kite's Development News Editor. Visit him online at daneldridge.wordpress.com; send feedback here.

PHOTOS by Peter Kubilus