It is a victim of a common misunderstanding regarding the nature of the architectural consumer.
Patrons are architectural sophisticates who consciously commission a building as a work of art.
They are willing to put up with additional costs, certain discomforts and some brickbats in support of the designers conception. Patrons permeate architectural periodicals as they are the motive force behind most of what is good enough to publish. Patrons are rare, but since they are geographically concentrated near meccas of New York and Los Angeles, it is common to believe that their number is greater than it is. Note how quickly the Patron class drops away by Philadelphia or Boston latitudes. The second type of consumer is the Client.