Evidence suggests that architects as a group cannot predict the public’s aesthetic evaluations of architecture. In this study, practicing architects predicted laypersons’ responses to large contemporary building, and again these predictions were poorly correlated with ratings by laypersons. To understand why most architects are unable to predict reactions to particular buildings, the architects’ predictions were analysed in relation to their own and lay ratings of the buildings’ conceptual properties. The results suggest that architects are unable to exchange their own criteria for conceptual properties for those of laypersons when they predict public evaluations, which leads to self-anchored, inaccurate predictions.