It sounds like the start of a bad joke. An eco-activist, a Labour party hack and an EDI advocate walk into a bar. Actually, that was where I found myself last week – in a lounge bar in Kings Cross – after the official candidate hustings for the election for president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba). Full disclosure: I was the fourth candidate – a bog-standard academic who has had enough of the usual suspects seeming to get the presidential title passed down to an anointed successor. I want to shake things up a bit.
The problematic net-zero script is central to architecture today, and so is the culture of restraint that follows from it
The president of the Riba is something of a figurehead, but does advocate for fellow architects, and is seen, by the organisation at least, as the public face of the profession. Presidents of the Riba are almost always founders and directors of their own practices, with networks and influence of their own. I’ve always felt uneasy about the continuity-candidate schtick, so I decided that – as a mere plain-speaking individual – it was time to put up or shut up.
I am increasingly frustrated by what goes on under the aegis of architecture with a capital ‘A’ – fed up with virtue signalling that ignores the everyday concerns of ordinary practitioners; fed up with closed door discussions; fed up with the collapse of free-thinking liberal arts education and its replacement with environmental orthodoxies; and fed up with the over-regulatory burden placed on everyday practices. So I thought that I should introduce some common-sense arguments to try to make a difference. Good luck to my fellow candidates, of course, but I have been sniping from the sidelines long enough that I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring.
