architecture is not architecture

7/29/2019 Architecture is Not Architecture

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Research Symposium 2009:Changing Practices

15: Architecture is not architecture is not architecture is not

architectureJeremy Till

University of Westminster

The title of my lecture isArchitecture is not architecture is not architecture is notarchitecture If we are going to talk about the changing practices of architecture it isworth, very quickly, unpicking what architecture means in various contexts, and theconflated understandings of architecture. The way that those understandings havebeen conflated might be the cause of some of the problems that we are currentlyfacing, but also knowing the problems may be the means of understanding how toescape them.

I also thought, since we are in the RIBA building, I would illustrate my points with theRIBA, but to do that I also need to establish my own credentials. I am a member ofthe RIBA because I always think it is better to be churlish from the inside rather than

attack from the outside, so I will be churlish about the RIBA but also come up withsome suggestions. Very quickly I want to go through the idea of architecture as aprofession, architecture as a practice, architecture as a product.

The first definition of architecture is as some sort of profession. A profession definesitself, or rather is required to define itself, in the establishment of a stable knowledgebase. If the knowledge base of the profession falls apart, then the profession is insome way seen to be fragile. In its very first incarnation, before the Royal Chartercame along, there was an organisation called the Institute of British Architects. Intheir first publication they wrote, as a justification for their existence: An Institute ofBritish Architects must obviously be advantageous to the country at large, fulfill ing itsresponsibility to public opinion for the direction and maintenance of national

character for taste and for forming a body to whom individuals may have recourse toits opinion on professional matters.

Many will say that the world has not moved on very much and that actually thisstatement is a very good summary of the self-defining nature of the profession andalso the limited service that the profession can provide to the country in terms ofaesthetic control. However, you do not get a Royal Charter by being so openly self-serving, so when we get to the Royal Charter, we find a much more noble thing aboutthe advancement architectural knowledge.

The defining feature of the profession and its charter is that this knowledge must insome way be categorised, it must in some way be stabilised, and this is exactly whatkeeps out the great hordes of the unwashed because only experts can have access to

that specialist knowledge. This, then, is the first definition of architecture architecture as a profession which is then defined through its stable knowledge base.

The second definition of architecture namely architecture as practice - is where westart to get a bit nervous because it is in practice where the stability of that knowledgebase begins to meet the contingencies of the outside world; we try to transfer thestability of the internal knowledge base of the profession into the real world througharchitectural practice.


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Of course, at that moment things begin to go awry, because the universalised natureof the knowledge base cannot cope with the various particulars of the real world. Atthis stage the profession tries to iron out those lumps, those accidents, thosevicissitudes, those things that are uncontrollable through a series of techniques. Themost well-known is to try to construct architectural practice as linear sequence, as

exemplified in the RIBA plan of work.

One of the suggestions that I would have at the end of the day is that this document isdispensed with, that it no longer becomes the definition of an architectural service. Itis, however, a very interesting piece of work because, if you look at it, there is a wholeset of descriptions of what happens within the building process and, miraculously, thearchitect has to be involved in all of them.

There is a nice quote from Reyner Banham who says a professional is a man with aninterest, a continuing interest, in the existence of problems and what the RIBA Planof Work does is to set up a set of problems and, hey presto!, the only people who cansolve those problems are the architects. But equally, as we have seen very extensively

today in Harriets work and Indys work there are multiple ways that an architectmight operate beyond the limits and limitations of the RIBA Plan of Work.

More than that, the RIBA Plan of Work has been used as a method of divide and rule i.e. up to Stage D you get a design architect and after Stage E you get a productionarchitect which can and has been exploited by clients. So something which wasmeant to control the vicissitudes and contingencies of the external world, in practicehas actually become a way of controlling practice and controlling the profession.

The RIBA Plan of Work in its very limits is actually restricting the way that we mightchange our practice and because, of course, fees are related to the RIBA Plan of Workwe actually get sucked into it. My suggestion is that we try to abandon that as amodel of architectural practice.

The next definition of architecture is architecture as product and we are nowbeginning to enter the confusion and conflation, because the profession is aboutknowledge, product is about objects and yet architecture is used to describe these twovery different contexts. The definition of architecture as stuff is a defining, clear andreceived version of what architecture is. The only people who can make that stuff arethe architects, so the architect is identified with architecture as stuff in most peoplesminds.

Of course the RIBA perpetuates this perception through a system of awards, througha system of accepted codes of what is good and what is bad stuff, and that is thenplayed out through the media. That is why I say the original statement, for thedirection and maintenance of national character for taste is perpetuated withinthings like the RIBA awards system.

The conflation is actually intentional; the knowledge of the profession begins todescribe architecture as practice which then leads to a certain type of architecture asproduct, which in turn forms the knowledge base for the profession. So what we getis a closed circle in which architecture becomes a controlling circling system, at thecentre of which today we have the RIBA.


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If you do not believe me I would like you all to turn around and look at the back. Iwonder if anyone has actually ever looked at this mural. (Illustration 1 to come) Inthe centre we have the RIBA Council Chamber which is the place of the productionand the codification of architectural knowledge. Sitting in there we have figures calledarchitects who, in the centre, in this expansive and wonderful, generous manner, are

taming the natives of the world through dropping architecture as a product onto theseunsuspecting but ever so willing suspects.

So there is a sense of the RIBA in the centre of this circle of profession-practice-product. The RIBA is not called the Royal Institute of British Architecture, it is calledthe Royal Institute of British Architects, so what it does is to stabilise the position ofthe architect in the centre of this internalised and supposedly strong circle.

Illustration 2: Architectures outside

But this self-defining circle turns its back on something rather important, which isarchitectures outside, all those events, forces and contingencies that are beyond thedirect control and definition of the profession. Architectures outside is like Banquosghost: it is always there but we do not know quite what to do with it. It is all thosethings that we know that architecture is involved in, but are just too complex to

engage with because they are outside our professional value system. It is, as Sunandhas said and Tatjana picked up in her list, to do with the consequences rather than theobject of architecture, it is to do with the effects of architecture, it is to do with allthose things that we are not fully in control of but we know in our heart of hearts thatwe should be thinking of.

The way I want to deal with this exclusion of architectures outside, and to see thelimits of the triangle (illustration 2), is to hold up the lens of ethics to each of theseconditions.


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First, if we look at the ethics of architecture as a profession, we find the most tragicdefinition of ethics of all. For instance in the ARB Code of Practice it states: thecode should be central to the life of an architect, not only as a source of ethicalguidance but also as a commonsense indicator to the principles of good practice.

You then look at the detail of the code and find the terms are all to do with short termprotection and the duty of care to the client. Just listing keywords from the heading ofeach standard is enough to show the ethical paucity of the ARB code: Acting with integrity Adequate professional, financial, and technical resources Truthful and responsible promotion and advertising Conscientious execution of work Regard to users Maintain professional and technical competence Security of clients monies Adequate indemnity cover Manage own finances prudently

Promote the standards of the code Organise work responsibly and with regard to clients Deal with complaints promptly and appropriately.

Regard to users may hint at a wider responsibility, but when you actually dig downinto that they are absolutely clear that your first responsibility is to the client, but ifyou can actually think a bit about the user that would be good too.

This approach is similarly played out in the RIBA Code of Professional Conduct aswell. So this would be the third thing I would be rid of in the RIBA. I have got rid ofthe Plan of Work, I have got rid of the picture and the final one is to get the RIBA torewrite their code of ethics.

If you look at the code of the Institute of Engineers, there is a very differentapproach: it says quite explicitly that the engineers first responsibility is to society atlarge over and above that to your client. Why cant architects start there?

Let us now look at the ethics of architecture as a product and the long history of thesad association of ethics with aesthetics, of morality with tectonics, of the clarity ofthe building with the clarity of society, of in some way the idea that a brick has morals,that a shadow gap is redemptive, and that we can save the world through beauty.

I wanted a picture of the RIBA Charter so I put RIBA Charter into Google imagesand somehow that landed me at a Flickr Group which collected a series of pictures ofshadow gaps shown in illustration 3.


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Illustration 3: Shadow gaps Flickr group

So Google did the conflation of architecture of profession with architecture asproduct rather beautifully. At the bottom of the group page it says: The shadow gap

in architectural designs; submit your image and influence the world. OK, there ishumour here, but for me a rather black humour. So, I took some pictures of shadowgaps in my house, and I asked if I could join their group (illustration 4).


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Illustration 4: My own shadowgaps

The scary thing is that these two conditions of so-called ethics, the ethics of aestheticsand the ethics of the profession, allow practice to get on with the most appallinglyunethical production, as Jonathan Charleys brilliant film showed. On the basis that,on the one hand, I am being ethical, through the very fact that I am a professional andI signed up for this code, and on the other hand that in some way I am being ethicalthrough the idea of the morality of beauty the production of architecture is allowedto completely ignore the real issues of the production of the built environment and itssocial and political context. So, as a quick example, the production of so-calledinnovative form in Dubai is done on the back of labour camps. The way that we avoidconfronting these difficult ethical issues of architectures outside, is through recourseto the protection of the ethics of the profession and the ethics of architecture asproduct, both of which are in fact phoney ethics.

So my plea is that we move away from the conflation of architecture as these threeconditions, and away from the RIBA in some way sustaining this conflation, and sowrapping up this self-defining and internalised system of architecture. My only pleatherefore is that what we need to do is to move to the consideration of architecturesoutside and, in particular, the ethics of architectures outside. This is poignantlysummarised through Zygmunt Baumans understanding of ethics: To assume an ethicalstance means to assume responsibility for the other. Baumans other is a multitude. It ismuch wider than the client, it is all those people who brief, build, occupy, view,review, remake and inhabit architecture. The need to recognise ethics of architecturesoutside becomes the necessity for changing practices.

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