Failure of Architectural Culture

I was moved to write this piece as an extension of a wonderful article, "Five ways Sydney is determined to self-sabotage", in today's Sydney Morning Herald by Elizabeth Farrelly.

My question: Is the architecture profession complicit in Sydney's "self-sabotage"?

My answer, yes.

What has happened at Darling Harbour and Barangaroo is embarrassingly bad, the sale of our significant architectural assets a disgrace and demolition & rebuild of perfectly good buildings beyond belief. Yet architects continue to accept these commissions. The AIA's willingness to support an architectural competition that ends in the move of the MAAS from Ultimo to Parramatta is equally complicit in this behaviour and no limp statement to the effect that it does not support the sale or closure of the Ultimo MAAS building, absolves it from the shame.

I am heartened by actions such the fight for Sirius and for Federation Sq. The actions of the the City of Sydney to take on proposing alternate solutions to the horrific Waterloo Tower scheme of the NSW Government, no doubt led by Philip Thalis one of the few architects to take up public office, equally gives me some a little hope.

Is it little wonder that the public profile of the architecture profession is poor, that its status is not what we would want when we are complicit in these acts that are an attack on our city and our public assets? What might happen if the profession was to stand up and say NO more often, to stand up for the values we place on our built environment. In the short term the commissions may dry up, but if the profession had some level of solidarity, it may present some level of pressure. That is not the point, however, the point is the act. The act of saying NO may start to build the status of the profession within the eye of the public. That the profession has integrity. To draw attention to the value of what we do of what we value, to the value of the built environment and importantly the value of public spaces and assets. The pressure will therefore not come from the act of saying NO per se, but from the stance that has been taken. From a position of leadership. Leading the public conversation and leading the public. Bringing about change by the act of attempting to shift the culture rather than maintaining it.