The French crisis of architects is often explained as resulting from the impact the two oil crises had on the construction sector. Several years of prosperity compel us to change this interpretation. In spite of recent building records, French architects still claim to exercise a “disaster profession” that can no longer be a sign of economic crisis. The two rival hypotheses, economic crisis vs. crisis of legitimacy, are tested during the prosperous period of the “Trente Glorieuses.” Architects’ testimonies of these years present all the warning signs of the current crisis. They describe the harmful consequences of design offices breaking into the market and the independence claims of a growing number of actors.