I'M STILL AN ARCHITECT!

Today, I resigned from the Register of Architects.

Thirty  years ago, almost to the day, I sat in on a council meeting of the then Architects Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK).  I was a journalist and junior editor working on the Architects Journal, and I was sent to sniff around the meeting to catch any news.

Well, there was momentous news - at least for me.  By a coincidence, one of the items on the agenda was the admission of a bunch of new architects to the Register, and my name was on it.  I guess I might easily be the only architect ever in this country to actually watch myself becoming one.

For readers who aren't familiar with the arcane procedures concerning architectural qualifications and registration, let me summarise:  the term 'architect' has been protected since the 1930s, which means that the only people allowed by law to describe themselves as architects are those who have been through a whole heap of training, and who are allowed to be on this Register.  The Register is kept by an official government-sanctioned body which oversees the standards of education for architects.   I should also point out that the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has no statutory role in this process whatsoever; it is a private club that exists solely to serve the interests of its members (all of whom must be registered architects).   I am interested in architecture, not in architects, and a posh club is no place for me.   I don't think it should be taken that seriously at all.

So there I was, after 5 years at college and a couple more in an office - a fully qualified architect, and able to describe myself as such.  I wrote an article in the Architects Journal at the time*, describing what it was like to go through all this college training.  In short, it was brilliant fun: Kingston's architecture school was in the art department, and that - as every sensible person knows - is exactly where schools of architecture belong.  We were caught up in all the philosophical debates of the time, and it was a real privilege to be amongst some of the most stimulating people I have ever known.  I made up my mind that my future would be in this sort of environment, and after a few years working 'in practice', I would return to architecture school to teach.

So I did work in practice - for ten years, to the day.  I was inspired to work in the public sector, out of a clear conviction that architecture had to be a public service.  That brought me into headlong collision with the forces of Thatcher, and I was abolished whilst working for the Greater London Council on some politically very sensitive housing work at Coin Street, near Waterloo.  I have, from hard-won first-hand experience, a certainty that architecture, by and large - and certainly as promoted by the RIBA - is conservative by nature; it feeds itself off fee income, and is naturally skewed in favour of the big and the brash, especially now that the public sector no longer exists.

After leaving the public sector I did return to a university as a teacher and professor, and this has been my very happy occupation ever since.  But throughout all this time - for thirty years - I have remained on the Register.  Each year I have paid the requisite fee to keep my name on it, and up until this very moment you could see me there on their website:  Thom Gorst.  049434H.  For this I paid in today's prices nearly £100 every year, which accumulates to a good second-hand motor over 30 years. 

I have been immensely proud to have been an architect, and during those 30 years I have worked centrally in the profession: I have chaired inspection boards to universities to ensure that their standards were up to scratch; I have examined the credentials of people wanting to join the Register; I have contributed to it all - partly out of genuine interest, and partly out of a sense that it might get me somewhere.  Let's be honest, nobody on the committee circuit of professional politics is doing it out of a sense of social service.  That's the trouble with architects - they think the world is a better place because of them.  They genuinely do! 

I do not believe for one minute that the world is best served by protecting the term 'architect', and I do not believe for one more minute that social interest is served by the existence of the RIBA. 

When you go to university to study French, does the French government oversee the course? - when you go to university to study music theory, does the Central Committee of Pianists oversee the course?  Why, then, should some self-interest club seek to influence and control architectural education?  The subject's just too important to be left to them: the quality and politics of the built environment is key to civic living.  How can an organisation like the RIBA whose members get paid on the basis of the value of buildings they produce claim any right to hegemony over civic aesthetics?

Everybody is, of course, an architect.  The authorities no longer have the strength to police their rules - so we are all architects, if we want to be!  Five years training! 

Take a look at the commercial development in the centre of a town like Slough to see what you get from people who have to train for five years!

We are all qualified to say whatever we want about buildings.  You don't need to be an expert to have an opinion, and  - take it from me - so called 'experts' in architecture sometimes have bizarrely arrogant opinions.

Being an architect has helped pay for a home, support a family and keep me in very stylish clothes, so I am grateful for it.  But it is a blessed relief not to have to pretend to believe in it any more.

Your relieved friend,

An Architect

*I published the article Sweet Dreams in the Architects Journal on 22 July 1981, p149.