The Architecture Thread

[Loathing]

The whole point is that John Pawson never did graduate from university, and foreign architects never gained the accreditation required to practice in the UK. An Italian lawyer wouldn't just be able a practice in the UK without being qualified in English Law - it would be illegal for him to advertise his services as a "lawyer".

And It's not a trade union, it's the regulatory authority, and all important professions are regulated in the same way. At £100 per year it's nothing.

The actual cost of qualifying in student fees is about £50k over 8 years, payed by student loans, but unless you live with your parents you'll have living costs. Those 8 years include 3 years of paid practical experience in industry, though, which (along with part time work over holidays) goes a long way to paying the cost. You do not need to be from a rich family at all.

 

[itsstillmatt]



Actually I think the ARB is absolutely in the right. Although Pawson/Piano/Liebskind are obviously architects, what the ARB are doing is using high profile examples in making sure the law is being seen to be done.

The UK has extremely strenuous criteria for being an architect, and it's one of the reasons the quality of architecture in the UK has been so high in recent years, and why there are so many Pritzker prize winners in such a small country.

Tough regulation on the qualification and title are important in maintaining that quality. If they did not regulate the title then no one would bother qualifying (since it costs about £100,000 over at least 8 years)

Surely you're not opposed to very similar regulation of titles like solicitor, barrister, accountant, doctor, etcetera? No reason architect should be different.

Or hairdresser or janitor.

 

[Find Finn]



The whole point is that John Pawson never did graduate from university, and foreign architects never gained the accreditation required to practice in the UK. An Italian lawyer wouldn't just be able a practice in the UK without being qualified in English Law - it would be illegal for him to advertise his services as a "lawyer".

And It's not a trade union, it's the regulatory authority, and all important professions are regulated in the same way. At £100 per year it's nothing.

The actual cost of qualifying in student fees is about £50k over 8 years, payed by student loans, but unless you live with your parents you'll have living costs. Those 8 years include 3 years of paid practical experience in industry, though, which (along with part time work over holidays) goes a long way to paying the cost. You do not need to be from a rich family at all.

I don't think the two can be compared, as architecture is architecture, where ever you go, but the laws and judicial system works change.

His wiki site calls him an architectural designer and his own site doesn't use the word architect, so I honestly don't see the problem, other than what everyone else calls him and in the end it's the engineers problem to make the building safe and faceable.

I misunderstood what you meant, I read it as they wanted a 100k over 8 years to be licensed.

Starck isn't an architect either and he designs buildings as well.

 

[evilWagon]

His wiki site calls him an architectural designer and his own site doesn't use the word architect, so I honestly don't see the problem, other than what everyone else calls him and in the end it's the engineers problem to make the building safe and faceable.

Actually the individual engineers have their own scopes of responsibility but the Architect has just as much liability. Things like exit routing, door hardware (crash bars, general security interface), stair design, railing heights and general design to code for occupant safety fall within their purview of responsibility. We use Structural Engineers to design the frame, but we're responsible for ensuring that the building use/loading information they're designing to is accurate. We use Mechanical Engineers to design the sprinkler systems, but the Architects are responsible for fire separations and ensuring they're coordinated. The Electrical Engineers design the Fire Alarm system and Security System (Access Control) but it's the job of the architect to ensure the building classifications they're designing to are accurate (usually with the input of a code consultant), occupant load and space use is reflected properly and any changes caught.

So it's not quite as cut and dry as it seems. Not to mention that in the case of an issue with the building the Architect is always named in a suit and usually the last one dropped.

 

[StephenHero]

You're an architect if you plan and design buildings. It's not the moral responsibility of a person whose life is spent doing exactly that to conform to their legal jurisdiction's ex post facto qualifications of the historical term before they describe their profession. The precedence for architect being a generalized term to describe a designer is too significant to simply let a British bureaucracy appropriate for their own petty designation, especially as they throw up onerous financial and educational barriers between a person and their intended line of work. It's a pretty important point of principle to reduce barriers between trade disciplines, because it acknowledges the historical importance of vernacular architecture's design methods, the democratic role of the development of architectural style in almost all cultures, and the also the contributions of people who willingly bypassed the moral pitfalls that being a licensed architect in certain countries meant (like the Soviet Union, where an "architect" was entrusted with hardly more than carrying out state-sponsored propaganda built over the shallow graves of dead political dissidents). Regardless, there's simply no serious way in which you can protest the term architect being applied to Michelangelo, Vitruvius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Piranesi, Thomas Jefferson, Ando, Piano, Lebbeus Woods, Maya Lin etc. on grounds of their lack of licenses. If they want to call themselves architect, you agree, because the title is self-evident.


In the example of British architecture, the consequence of the ARB's legal appropriation of the term is that it gives them the capacity to decide who is really capable of designing buildings in an architectural culture whose strongest traditional styles and contributions to architectural history are all rooted in a construction tradition in which common style arose out of spontaneity and whim of common tradespeople and owner-architects, whose primary qualifications were the things they simply figured out how to ******* make in the first place, by themselves, without a licensing authority to stop them.

It also includes the occasional instance of an architect like Joseph Paxton, who would be forced to become licensed to claim himself architect of a building whose style he singularly invented. How the **** a licensing board should rightly withhold legal authority of a title to a person who is the only authority on its design is beyond me, but that's the culturally and historically-dismissive form of delusion the ARB and its international peers pretend to roll with, which incidentally is almost entirely motivated by money.

 

[Loathing]

Stephen, you are being wilfully obtuse. Why bring up ridiculous red herrings like Michelangelo and Vitruvius? No one is claiming historic architects should be retroactively designated "architectural consultants", so why bother creating a straw man?

And also, your claim that the ARB and similar regulatory authorities have the capacity to control which architectural styles are acceptable or popular is complete ******* bullshit. You get your degree from any architectural school and you are automatically eligible for accreditation. Simple as that. Your architectural style or any other normative factor simply isn't a factor. If you are a foreign qualified architect, it is not difficult to acquire the relevant license to practice in the UK. It's actually infinitely easier than it would be for a lawyer.

Frankly, I think your antipathy towards regulation is bizarre. If your radical localism or liberalism or idealism, or whatever it is that motivates your outlook, were implemented it would be extremely damaging to the quality of architecture. You cite anachronistic examples like Stone-*******-henge and you genuinely think that that spontaneous approach to architecture is relevant to the way society is structured today?

Anyway, don't you have have an axe to grind because you yourself are an unqualified "architect"?

 

[itsstillmatt]



Stephen, you are being wilfully obtuse. Why bring up ridiculous red herrings like Michelangelo and Vitruvius? No one is claiming historic architects should be retroactively designated "architectural consultants", so why bother creating a straw man?

And also, your claim that the ARB and similar regulatory authorities have the capacity to control which architectural styles are acceptable or popular is complete ******* bullshit. You get your degree from any architectural school and you are automatically eligible for accreditation. Simple as that. Your architectural style or any other normative factor simply isn't a factor. If you are a foreign qualified architect, it is not difficult to acquire the relevant license to practice in the UK. It's actually infinitely easier than it would be for a lawyer.

Frankly, I think your antipathy towards regulation is bizarre. If your radical localism or liberalism or idealism, or whatever it is that motivates your outlook, were implemented it would be extremely damaging to the quality of architecture. You cite anachronistic examples like Stone-*******-henge and you genuinely think that that spontaneous approach to architecture is relevant to the way society is structured today?

Anyway, don't you have have an axe to grind because you yourself are an unqualified "architect"?

There is a big difference between requiring some sort of license or collaboration with a local architect and not being able to call Renzo Piano an "architect." The former is questionable in many ways, but the latter is so ridiculous it defies belief. These organizations are really only there to increase the number of dollars going to members at the expense of those kept out. It is no different from hair cutter licensing. Just bullshit.

 

[Loathing]



I don't think the two can be compared, as architecture is architecture, where ever you go...

I disagree deeply. Every country has it's own architecture code and planning regulations -- they are literally laws, so the analogy to a lawyer holds. The UK has particularly comprehensive and demanding planning regulations which can dictate everything from the massing, form, fenestration, and cladding material to the species of tree which you plant outside the building.

 

[lawyerdad]



There is a big difference between requiring some sort of license or collaboration with a local architect and not being able to call Renzo Piano an "architect." The former is questionable in many ways, but the latter is so ridiculous it defies belief. These organizations are really only there to increase the number of dollars going to members at the expense of those kept out. It is no different from hair cutter licensing. Just bullshit.

So thankful my profession has escaped this licensing silliness, and I can just do my thing without jumping through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops.

 

[gomestar]

the UK can really suck the life out of building designs

 

[Loathing]



These organizations are really only there to increase the number of dollars going to members at the expense of those kept out. It is no different from hair cutter licensing. Just bullshit.

That's not true at all though. In the UK, RIBA and the ARB are part of the apparatus of the judiciary and the state. They are not just "members' clubs" in they way the the AIA is in the USA.

Also, I think you've misunderstood the law around the word "architect": you are allowed to call Renzo Piano an architect if you insist, it's just that he cannot advertise himself as an architect.

UK-based journalists are advised not to call him an architect by the ARB simply to show that the law is being implemented. I've said already: I agree that it's a silly point of semantics but it does have its purpose.

 

[Loathing]



the UK can really suck the life out of building designs

You would think that, but the system is actually very flexible. Radical designs by Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaus, Zaha Hadid, or Richard Rogers sail through the planning system without any amendments. But the trash which profit-maximizing property cowboys try to push through gets blocked to a certain extent.

I reckon London has produced far better architecture over the last 15 years than most other cities in the world, certainly better than US cities where developers have basically unfettered freedom and unlimited budgets.

 

[lawyerdad]



That's not true at all though. In the UK, RIBA and the ARB are part of the apparatus of the judiciary and the state. They are not just "members' clubs" in they way the the AIA is in the USA.

That's something of a non-sequitur. In the U.S., the precise regulatory structure for attorneys varies from state to state. There's a patchwork of government regulatory bodies and private or semi-private bar associations to which some functions have effectively been outsourced. I believe that there is some need for licensing and disciplinary oversight of lawyers. But it's beyond reasonable dispute that much of what these organizations do is more about protectionism, maintaining monopolistic power, and manipulating the market for legal services. The fact that over the years us law-talking guys have been effective lobbyists doesn't change that fact.

 

[Find Finn]



I disagree deeply. Every country has it's own architecture code and planning regulations -- they are literally laws, so the analogy to a lawyer holds. The UK has particularly comprehensive and demanding planning regulations which can dictate everything from the massing, form, fenestration, and cladding material to the species of tree which you plant outside the building.

Planing is anywhere and everywhere and they are included in the brief architects get, before they get hired, we have the same issues and people get round without a problem eventhough they are not Danish architects and we have height restrictions on all building downtown.

Most architects don't decide, which trees etc. to use and if they do developers often change it to something more cost effective (read: cheaper).

 

[Loathing]



That's something of a non-sequitur. In the U.S., the precise regulatory structure for attorneys varies from state to state. There's a patchwork of government regulatory bodies and private or semi-private bar associations to which some functions have effectively been outsourced. I believe that there is some need for licensing and disciplinary oversight of lawyers. But it's beyond reasonable dispute that much of what these organizations do is more about protectionism, maintaining monopolistic power, and manipulating the market for legal services. The fact that over the years us law-talking guys have been effective lobbyists doesn't change that fact.

You are making the mistake of conflating the US and the UK. The US legal profession is well-known worldwide for being artificially exclusionary to preserve high salaries. It doesn't work that way in the UK for the legal or architectural professions.