Purpose, worth and the value of architecture

Thank you to RIBA for inviting me to be keynote speaker at the RIBA London Awards last night. Dian Small asked me to be provocative, kristofer robert adelaide asked me to be entertaining. I've probably failed at both, though some thought it was a rant, others thought it was my bid to be President (which couldn't be further from my mind). Nonetheless many welcomed my challenge of our hopeless procurement system and poor pay so I thought I should share a transcript here. Thanks to our host Damion Burrows and congratulations to all the worthy winners. Here it is:

"One of the privileges of winning the Stirling Prize is that lots of people seem to want to hear what I have to say. Or at least that is until this year’s winner is announced I guess.

Architecture is first and foremost quite a personal creative endeavour and I am not a natural campaigner but I’ve been given this platform. So I thought I should talk about issues that are both close to my heart, and also more prosaic ones that are fundamental to the health of the profession. I want to talk this evening about the purpose, about worth and the value of architecture. Themes related to the John Morden centre but I won’t be talking specifically about that project.

On Tuesday I went to the National Theatre and the play Nye, and I should first say my talk isn’t going to be a run down of the cultural highlights of my week. That said, I did go to a brilliant Bijoy Jain lecture last night at the Royal Academy. His work poetically speaks of ideas about the relationship of architecture to the cosmos, to the land, to ecology and to craft, the universality of architecture.

Anyway back to Nye, why do I mention a play, starring Michael Sheen - who’s very good by the way-, at an architectural event? Nye Bevan is best known for his contribution to the founding of the welfare state. His influence extended beyond setting up the NHS. When Bevan was made a minister in 1945, he had responsibility for housing.

He envisaged the?social housing sector?as a service similar to the National Health Service, ensuring that everyone had access to decent and affordable homes. He recognised the strong link between poor housing and ill-health. He championed quality as much as quantity. He also recognised the value of awards in raising standards. When launching the Housing Design Awards Bevan is quoted as saying:?“While we are judged for a year or two by the number of houses we build...we shall be judged in ten years time by the type of houses we build”. The RIBA Awards are also about the type. The type of buildings we create and their quality. They illustrate the standard of what our built environment should be writ large.

The postwar conviction that good things (from housing to healthcare) ought to be available to everyone, regardless of their income is something we need to be reminded of today. These awards fundamentally celebrate what is good in life, i.e. the world around us. Architecture alongside the arts more generally has the potential to strengthen what we can offer the world, and improve the image we present to the world; especially when our political standing has been diminished.

The UK can be a cultural powerhouse and our arts can give us global standing. And I don’t mean in a dominating way as brought into stark focus in the brilliant ‘Raise the Roof’ exhibition upstairs. But in a way that offers collaborations, shared learnings and mutual respect. Our remarkable architecture gives us a sense of place, heritage and history.

Investing in architecture and the arts also happens to be a sound economic investment, in which relatively small amounts have excellent returns. It is a means of restoring local pride and reinvigorating town centres, of attracting tourists and delivering soft power. An investment in architecture not only serves those commissioning it but it is about contributing to society. Even if only at the level of uplifting the spirit of the passerby. At a greater level it can be about giving people back public space – space which is the building block of public life.?It is about offering people ideas beyond their immediate experience – ideas that can bring delight, hope and joy, but also spark individuals’ ambitions, or suggest possibilities beyond their immediate horizon. It is about offering people the chance to live with dignity, to be better citizens –who treat each other with decency and understanding–. It is the stuff of being fully human.

So my question is ‘are we investing in it as fully as possible?’.

The buildings awarded this evening are just a fraction of what is built each year. Most buildings don’t get the attention and care that has clearly gone into those we will see tonight. We typically don’t spend the time or have the fee needed to drive up quality. Fees have been stagnant for many years while costs have been spiralling. Indeed we have seen a race to the bottom in terms of low fee bidding. We see precious little guidance from the RIBA as to what clients should expect to pay for a good service and we have a diminished pool of opportunity. The result is low pay, low reward, low investment in design and as a consequence low quality.? According to Opus Business Advisory Group over 1,000 architectural firms are at serious risk of failure.

A thriving architecture sector can contribute to place-making by promoting greater economic prosperity in a community. The global success of Open House demonstrate that people are interested in architecture and want to be uplifted by it. We look, admire and dream of the sort of projects celebrated today. Buildings having a positive effect on a neighbourhood, a family, an individual. When done right they improve health and wellbeing and reduce anti-social behaviour and its associated costs.

So the point I want to make today is that if we want globally distinguished architecture we need a world class profession that is valued, that recognises its worth, that is remunerated accordingly. Industry needs to recognise that architects add value, we are not just another consultant on the list to be appointed after the project manager and QS.

To this end our procurement and competition process in the UK is not working. We have a system where the cheapest bid buys the project regardless of the quality criteria and where quality, when measured, relates to how robust our ISO accreditation is, or our ability to put together a programme or reduce risk. We need development leaders calling for a higher quality and a more diverse design supply chain. We need to challenge every institutional barrier - internal bureaucracy, unproductive waste, organisational culture, definitions of value for money. The RIBA needs to promote its members commercial interests not just its design skills.

With better remuneration we can invest in young talent, support underrepresented groups, spend more time finding better solutions to the challenges our industry face and we can sleep better at night knowing that we’re not on the precipice of redundancies or being unsustainable as a business.

The buildings being awarded this evening deserve to be celebrated at the highest level; they are fundamentally about humanising our world and making it a better place and hopefully proving that architecture is a good investment.? I wish you all the best of luck.

?Thank you."

Alex Ely 10.05.2024

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