1 10 39 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/54c84b3f9580a50bc8050ba2b7ad4730.pdf dd9fa473ae21b57994e20a4b8bdd7c13 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Ladder of Citizen Participation Subject The topic of the resource Article from AIP Journal copied by John Allan to NDS Group on 17.5 77 Description An account of the resource —. Kam /mid-o >» LamDen/ AG (S oe I>. Ou QOSBu vo a5/ man Ves77 So NETLLAEAree 7 ot i ©]. Lnweny Ant) tytn hes, TT rene. ~ Ahen 2 aoha oo — / LOus 052 Ones Ue “ws HKPe SfLOK. ATI , |sy 6 OL Sl Al 2\Fr0.Q4 Bs 69 BALL wo,Asod WCWLIC wn! Lectin, ord & Vas Cu Arr LO, AQ, Qke1We Adepron. short: What is citizen participation and what is its relationship to the social imperatives of our time? Citizen Participation is Citizen Power Because the question has been a bone of political conten- tion, most of the answers have been purposely buried in innocuous euphemisms like “self-help” or “citizen involvement.’’ Still others have been embellished with misleading rhetoric like “‘absolute control’’ which is something no one—including the President of the Sherry R. Arnstein is Director of Community Development Studies for The Commons, a non-profit research institute in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. She is a former Chief Advisor on Citizen Participation in HUD’s Model Cities Administra- tion and has served as Staff Consultant to the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of HEW, and Washington Editor of Current Magazine. you pavjicipate; he participates; we participate; you paryicipate , . . They profit. 216 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 Sle 64. EMPTY RITUAL VERSUS BENEFIT There is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. This difference is brilliantly capsulized in a poster painted last spring by the French students to explain the student- worker rebellion.?, (See Figure 1.) The poster highlights the fundamental point that_participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frus- trating process for the powerless. It allows the power- holders to claim that all sides were considered but makes itpossible for only some of those sides to beneitt. It maintains the status quo. Essentially, it ts what has | ’ The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you. Participation of the gov- erned in theic government is, in theory, the corner- stone of democracy—a revered idea that is vigorously applauded by virtually everyone. The applause is re- duced to polite handclaps, however, when this princi- ple is advocated by the have-not blacks, Mexican- Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, Eskimos, and whites. And when the have-nots define participation as re- distribution of power, the American consensus on the fundamental principle explodes into many shades of outright racial, ethnic, opposition. | “4 There have been many recent speeches, articles, and books! which explore in detail who are the have-nots of our time. There has been much recent documenta- tion of why the have-nots have become so offended and embittered by their powerlessness to deal with the pro- found inequities and injustices pervading their daily lives. But there has been very little analysis of the content of the current controversial slogan: participation” or “maximum feasible participation.” In an A LADDER OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION , The heated controversy over “citizen participation,” “citizen control,” and “maximum feasible involvement of the poor,” has been waged largely in terms of ex- acerbated rhetoric and misleading euphemisms. To encourage a more enlightened dialogue, a typology of citizen participation is offered using examples from three federal social programs: urban renewal, anti- poverty, and Model Cities. The typology, which is designed to be provocative, is arranged in a ladder pattern with cach rung corresponding to the extent of citizens’ power in determining the plan and/or program. : ideological, and political “citizen A Mer Coan Lu strtute of Plan NEV Journ! 007 R.Arnstein United States—has or can have. Between understated euphemisms and exacerbated rhetoric, even scholars have found it difficult to follow the controversy. To the headline reading public, it is simply bewildering. My answer to the critical wat question is simply that citizen participation is a categorical term for citizen Hower, It is the redistribution of power that enables the 1ave-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information ts shared, goals and policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceledout. Inshort,itisthemeabynwhsich theycan induce significant social reform which enables them to “share in the benefits of the affluent society. FIGURE 1 French §tudent Poster. In English, 1 participate; J tokenism because the groundrules allow have-nots to advise, but retain for the powerholders the continued right to decide. Further up the ladder are levels of citizen power with increasing degrees of decision-making clout. Citizens ARNSTEIN Another captian about the eight separate rungs on the ladder: In the rea} world of people and programs, there might be 15Q rungs with less sharp and ‘‘pure’’ distinc- tions among fhem, Furthermore, some of the character- istics used tq jllystrate each of the eight types might be 217 8 7 6 5 4 3 : ° 1 FIGURE 2 Citizen control Delegated power Partnership Placation Consultation Informing Therapy Manipulation Degrees = of citizen power Degrees — of tokenism can enter into a (6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with traditional powerholders. At the topmost rungs, (7) Delegated Power and (8) Citizen Control, have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power. Obviously, the cight-rung ladder is a simplification, but it helps to illustrate the point that so many have missed—that there are significant gradations of citizen participation. Knowing these gradations makes itpossi- ble to cut through the hyperbole to understand the increasingly strident demands for participation from the have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing responses from the powerholders. Though the typology uses examples from federal programs such as urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities; it could just as easily be illustrated in the church, currently facing demands for power from priests and laymen who seek to change its mission; colleges and universities which in some cases have become literal battlegrounds over the issue of student power; or public schools, city halls, and police departments (or big busi- ness which is likely to be next on the expanding list of targets). The underlying issues are essentially the same —"nobodies” in several arenas are trying to become ‘‘somebodies” with enough power to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs. LIMITATIONS OF THE TYPOLOGY The ladder juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful in order to highlight the fundamental di- visions between them. In actuality, neither the have-nots nor the powerholders are homogeneous blocs. Each group encompasses a host of divergent points of view, significant cleavages, competing vested interests, and splintered subgroups. The justification for using such simplistic abstractions is that in most cases the have-nots really do perceive the powerful as a monolithic “'sys- tem,” and powerholders actually do view the have-nots as a sea of “those people,” with little comprehension of the class and caste differences among them. It should be noted that the typology does not include an analysis of the most significant roadblocks to achtev- ing genuine levels of participation. These roadblocks lie on both sides of the simplistic fence. On the power- holders’ side, they include racism, paternalism, and resistance topower redistribution. On the have-nots’ side, they include inadequacies of the poor community's Eight Rungs on a Ladder of Citizen Partict- pation been happening in most of the 1,000 Community Action Programs, and what promises to be repeated in the vast majority of the 150 Model Cities programs. Types ofParticipation and “NonParticipation” A typology of eight /evels of participation may help in analysis of this confused issue. For illustrative pur- poses the eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens’ power in determining the end product. (See Figure 2.) The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1) Manzpula- | tion and (2) Therapy. These two rungs describe levels of “non-participation” that have been contrived by some ;to substitute for genuine participation. Their real ob- |jective is not to enable people to participate in planning _or conducting programs, but to enable powerholders to “educate” or “cure” the participants. Rungs 3 and 4 progress to levels of ‘‘tokenism” that allow the have- inots to hear and to have a voice: (3) Informing and (4) Consultation. When they are proffered by power- holders as the total extent of participation, citizens may ' indeed hear and be heard. But under these conditions — “] fasF “ waa ool Nonperticipation they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful. When participation is re-| political socipecanomic infrastructure and knowledge- base, plus difficulties of organizing a representative and “muscle,” hence no assurance of changing the status accountable fitizens’ group in the face of Entity, quo. Rung (5) Placation, is simply a higher level alienation, and distrust. stricted to these levels, there is no followthrough, no ianaa PREFERS re orHaat | One hopeful note is that, having been so grossly affronted, some citizens have learned the Mickey Mouse game, and now they too know how to play. Asa result | applicable to other rungs. For example, employment of the have-nots in a program or on a planning staff could occur at any of the eight rungs and could represent either a legitimate or illegitimate characteristic of citi- zen participation, Depending on their motives, power- holders can hire poor people to coopt them, to placate them, or to utilize the have-nots’ special skills and insights.4 Some mayors, in private, actually boast of their strategy in hiring militant black Icaders to muzzle them while destroying their credibility in the black community. The signators are not informed that the $2 million- per-year center will only refer residents to the same old waiting lines at the same old agencies across town. No one is asked if such a referral center is really needed in his neighborhood. No one realizes that the contractor for the building is the mayor's brother-in-law, or that the new director of the center will be the same old com- munity organization specialist from the urban renewal agency. After signing their names, the proud grassrooters dutifully spread she word that they have “participated” in bringing a new and wonderful center to the neighbor- hood to provide people with drastically needed jops and Characteristics and Illustrations It is in this context of power and powerlessness that the health and welfare services. Only after the ribbon- characteristics of the eight rungs are illustrated by cutting ceremony do the members of the neighborhood examples from current federal social programs. council realize that they didn't ask the important ques- tions, and that they had no technical advisors of their 1. MANIPULATION own to help them grasp the fine legal print. The new shiny new neighborhood center. Unfortunately, this chicanery is not a ynique example. Instead it is almost typical of what has been perpetrated in the name of high-sounding rhetoric like “grassroots participation.”Thisshamliesattheheartofthedeep- seated exasperation and hostility of the have-nots toward the powerholders. In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards adds to their problems. Now the old agencies across for the express purpose of “educating” them or engi- town won't talk with them unless they have a pink paper neering their support. Instead of genuine citizen par- slip to prove that they have been referred by “their” ticipation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders. This illusory form of ‘‘participation’’ initially came intovoguewithurbanrenewalwhenthesociallyelite were invited by city housing officials to serve on Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs). Another target of ma- nipulation were the CAC subcommittees on minority groups, which in theory were to protect the rights of Negroes in the renewal program. In practice, these subcommittees, like their parent CACs, functioned of this knowledge, they are demanding genuine levels mostly as letterheads, trotted forward at appropriate times to promote urban renewal plans (in recent years known asNegro removal plans). At meetings of the Citizen Advisory Committees, it "was the officials who educated, persuaded, and advised the citizens, not the reverse. Federal guidelines for the renewal programs legitimized the manipulative agenda by emphasizing the terms ‘‘information-gathering,” “public relations,” and “‘support’’ as the explicit func- tions of the committees.* This style of nonparticipation has since been applied to other programs encompassing the poor. Examples of this are seen in Community Action Agencies (CAAs) which have created structures called “neighborhood councils’ or “neighborhood advisory groups.’ These of participation to assuge them that public programs are relevant to their needs and responsive to their priorities. bodies frequently have no legitimate function or power.® The CAAs use them to “prove” that ‘“‘grassroots \changing the racism 4nd victimization that create their people” are involved in the program. But the programm may not have been discussed with ‘‘the people.’” Or it may have been described at a meeting in the most general terms; “We need your signatures on this pro- posal for a multiservice center which will house, under one roof, doctors from the health department, workers from the welfare department, and specialists from the that afternoon of pneumanja and dehydration. The employment service.” overwrought father cqmplained to the board of the local 218 Alp JOURNAL JULY 1969 center, which is open 9 to 5 on weekdays only, actually 2. THERAPY In some respects group therapy, masked as citizen par- ticipation, should be gn the Jowest rung of the ladder because it is both dishonest and arrogant. Its adminis- trators—mental health experts from social workers to _psychiatrists—assume shat powerlessness is synonymous with mental illness. Qn this assumption, under a mas- querade of involving ¢itizens in planning, the experts subject the citizens ty clinical group therapy. What makes this form of “participation” so invidious is that citizens are engaged ip extensive activity, but the focus of it is on curing them of thejr ‘‘pathology’’ rather than pathologies.” Consider an incidept that occurred in Pennsylvania less than one year ago, When a father took his seriously il baby to the emergency clijnic.of a local hospital, a young resident physicjan on duty instructed him to take the baby home and feed it sygar water, The baby died Community Action Agency. Instead of launching an investigation of the hospital to determine what changes would prevent similar deaths or other forms of mal- practice, the board invited the father to attend the CAA’s (therapy) child-care sessions for parents, and promised him that someone would “telephone the hos- pital director to see that it never happens again.” Less dramatic, but more common examples of therapy, masquerading as citizen participation, may be seen in public housing programs where tenant groups are used as vehicles for promoting control-your-child or cleanup campaigns. The tenants are brought together to help them ‘‘adjust their values and attitudes to those of the larger society.” Under these groundrules, they are diverted from dealing with such important matters as: arbitrary evictions; segregation of the housing proj- ect; or why is there a three-month time lapse to get a broken window replaced in winter. The complexity of the concept of mental illness in our time can be seen in the experiences of student /civil rights workers facing guns, whips, and other forms of terror in the South. They needed the help of socially attuned psychiatrists to deal with their fears and to avoid paranoia.’ 3. INFORMING Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options can be the most important first step toward legitimate citizen participation. However, too frequently the emphasis is placed on a one-way flow of information —from officials to citizens—with no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation. Under these conditions, particularly when information isprovided at a late stage in planning, people have little opportunity to influence the program designed “for their benefit.” The most frequent tools used for such one-way com- munication are the news media, pamphlets, posters, and responses to inquiries. Meetings can also be turned into vehicles for one-way communication by the simple device of providing super- ficial information, discouraging questions, or giving irrelevant answers. At a recent Model Cities citizen planning meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, the topic the official, the citizens accepted the “information” and endorsed the agency's proposal to place four lots in the white neighborhood.* 4. CONSULTATION Inviting citizens’ opinions, like informing them, can be a legitimate step toward their full participation. But if consulting them is not combined with other modes of participation, this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The most frequent methods used for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings, and public hearings. When powerholders restrict the input of citizens’ ideas solely to this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual. People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, and participation is measured by how many come to meetings, take brochures home, or answer a questionnaire. What citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have “participated in participa- tion.’” And what powerholders achieve is the evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving ‘'those people.” Attitude surveys have become a particular bone of ARNSTEIN i 219 «Pee contention in ghetto neighborhoods. creasingly unhappy about the number of times per week they are surveyed about their problems and hopes. As one woman put it: ‘Nothing ever happens with those damned questions, except the surveyer gets $3 an hour, and my washing doesn’t get done that day.” In some communities, residents are so annoyed that they are demanding a fee for research interviews. Attitude surveys are not very valid indicators of com- munity opinion when used without other input from citizens, Survey after survey (paid for out of anti- poverty funds) has ‘‘documented”’ that poor housewives most want tot-lots in their neighborhood where young children can play safely. But most of the women an- swered these questionnaires without knowing what their options were. They assumed that if they asked for something small, they might just get something useful Residents are in- a (a ie ‘in the neighborhood. Had the mothers known that a free prepaid health insurance plan was a possible option, they might not have put tot-lots so high on their wish lists. A classic misuse of the consultation rung occurred at aNew Haven, Connecticut, community meeting held to consult citizens on a proposed Model Cities. grant. James V. Cunningham, in an unpublished report to the Ford Foundation, described the crowd as large and “mostly hostile:”’ ® tives, almost all of whom were attending three to five meetings a week, devoted an hour to a discussion of the placement of six tot-lots. The neighborhood is half black, half white. Several of the black representatives noted that four tot-lots were proposed for the white district and only two for the black. The city official responded with alengthy, highly technical explanation about costs per square foot and available property. It was clear that most of the residents did not understand his explanation. And it was clear to observers from the Office of Economic Opportunity that other options did exist which, considering available funds, would have brought about a more equitable distribution of facilities. Intimidated by futility, legalistic jargon, and prestige of was ‘‘tot-lots.” A group of elected citizen representa- . Members of The Hil] Parents Association de- manded to know why fesidents had not partici- pated in drawing up the praposal. CAA director Spitz explained that it was merely a proposal for seeking Federal planning funds—that once funds were obtained, residenty would be deeply involved in the planning. An oytside observer who sat in patie vices 5. PLACATION It is at this level that citizens begin to have some degree of influence though tokenism is still apparent. An example of placation strategy is to place a few hand- picked ‘‘worthy” poor on boards of Community Action Agencies or on public bodies like the board of educa- tion, police commission, or housing authority. If they are not accountable to a constituency in the community and if the traditional power elite hold the majority of seats, the have-nots can be easily outvoted and outfoxed. Another example is the Model Cities advisory and planning committees. They allow citizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retain for powerholders the right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice. The degree to which citizens are actually placated, of course, depends largely on two factors: the quality of technical- \ ambiguity is likely to cause considerable conflict at the assistance they have in articulating their priorities; and the extent to which the community has been organized to press for those priorities. ‘end of the one-year planning process. For at this point, citizens may realize that they have once again exten- sively “participated” but have not profited beyond the extent the powerholders decide to placate them, It is not surprising that the level of citizen participa- tion in the vast majority of Model Cities programs is at the placation rung of the ladder or below. Policy- 1968 before the second round of seventy-five planning makers at the Department of Housing and Urban De- grants were awarded) were released in a December velopment (HUD) were determined to return the genie 1968 HUD bulletin.11 Though this public document ofcitizenpowertothebottlefromwhichithadescaped usesmuchmoredelicateanddiplomaticlanguage,it 220 AIP TOVIRATAY warn Results of a staff study (conducted in the summer of (in a few cities) as a result of the provision stipulating “maximum feasible participation” in poverty programs. Therefore, HUD channeled its physical-social-cconomic rejuvenation approach for blighted neighborhoods through city hall. It drafted legislation requiring that al Model Cities’ money flow to a local City Demonstra- tion Agency (CDA) through the elected city council, As enacted by Congress, this gave local city councils final veto power over planning and programming and ruled out any direct funding relationship between community groups and HUD. HUD required the CDAs to create coalition, policy- making boards that would include necessary local power- holders to create a comprehensive physical-social plan during the first year. The plan was to be carried out in a subsequent five-year action phase. HUD, unlike OEO, did not require that have-not citizens be included on the CDA decision-making boards. HUD's Performance Standards for Citizen Participation only demanded that “citizens have clear and direct access to the decision- making process.” Accordingly, the CDAs structuted their policy- making boards to include some combination of elected officials; school representatives; housing, health, and welfare officials; employment and police department representatives, and various civic, labor, and business leaders. Some CDAs included citizens from the neigh- borhood. Many mayors correctly interpreted the HUD provision for “access to the decision-making process’ as the escape hatch they sought to relegate citizens to the traditional advisory role. Most CDAs created residents’ advisory committees. An alarmingly significant number created citizens’ policy boards and citizens’ policy committees which are totally misnamed as they have either no policy-making function or only a very limited authority. Almost every CDA created about a dozen planning committees or task forces on functional lines: health, welfare, education, housing, and unemployment. were invited to serve on these committees along with technicians from relevant public agencies. Some CDAs, on the other hand, structured planning committees of technicians and parallel committees of citizens. In most cases, have-not citizens In most Model Cities programs, endless time has been spent fashioning complicated board, committee, and task force structures for the planning year. But the rights and responsibilities of the various elements of those structures are not defined and are ambiguous. Such the audience described the mecting this way: “Spitz and Mel Adams ran the meeting on their own, No representatives of a Hill group mod- erated or even sat on the stage. Spitz told the 300 residents that this huge meeting was an example of ‘participation in planning.’ To prove this, since there was a Jot of dissatisfaction in the audience, he called for ‘a ‘vote’ on each component of the proposal. The vote took this form: ‘Can I see the hands of al those in favor of a health clinic? All those opposed?’ It was alittle like asking who favors motherhood.” It was a combination of the deep suspicion aroused at this meeting and a long history of similar forms of “window-dressing participation” that led New Haven residents to demand control of the program. By way of contrast, it is useful to look at Denver where technicians learned that even the best intentioned among them are often unfamiliar with, and even in- sensitive to, the problems and aspirations of the poor. The technical director of the Model Cities program has described the way professional planners assumed that the residents, victimized by high-priced local storekeep- ers, “badly needed consumer education.” 1° The resi- dents, on the other hand, pointed out that the local storekeepers performed avaluable function. Although they overcharged, they also gave credit, offered advice, and frequently were the only neighborhood place to cash welfare or salary checks. As a result of this con- sultation, technicians and residents agreed to substitute the creation of needed neighborhood for a consumer education program. credit institutions in the 7 ARNSTEIN technicians, lawyers, and community organizers. With these ingredients, citigens have some genuine bargain- 6. PARTNERSHIP At this rung of the ladder, power is in fact redistributed through negotiation ketween citizens and powerholders. They agree to sharg planning and decision-making responsibilities through such structures as joint policy boards, planning coramittees and mechanisms for re- solving impasses. After the groundrules have been established through some farm of give-and-take, they are not subject to unilateral change. Partnership can wark most effectively when there is an organized power-base jn the commynity to which the citizen leaders are accpuntable; when the citizens group has the financial resoyrces ta pay its leaders reasonable honoraria for their time-consuming efforts; and when the group has the respurces to hire (and fire) its own 221 attests to the already cited criticisms of non-policy- It also urge. CDAs to experiment with subcontracts makingpolicyboardsandambiguouscomplicatedstruc- underwhichtheresidents’groupscouldhiretheirown tures, in addition to the following findings: 1. Most CDAs did not negotiate citizen par- trusted technicians. A more recent evaluation was cisculated in February ticipation requirements with residents. 2. Citizens, drawing on past negative experi- 1969 by OST], a private firm that entered into a con- tract with OEO to provide technical assistance and trajn- ing to citizens involved in Model Cities programs in the northeast region of the country. OSTI's report to OEO corroborates the earlier study. In addition it states: 2 ences with local powerholders, were extremely sus- picious of this new panacea program. They were legiti- mately distrustful of city hall’s motives. 3. Most CDAs were not working with citizens’ groups that were genuinely representative of model neighborhoods and accountable to neighborhood con- stituencies. As in so many of the poverty programs, those wha were involved were more representative of the upwardly mobile working-class. Thus their ac- quiescence to plans prepared by city agencies was not In practically no Mcadel Cities structure does citi- zen patticipaticn mean truly shared decision- making, such that citizens might view themselves as“thepartnersinthisprogram. .,.” likely to reflect the views of the unemployed, the young, the more militant residents, and the hard-core poor. In general, citizens are finding it impossible to have a significant impact on the comprehensive planning which is going on. In most cases the staff planners of the CDA and the plaryners of existing agencies are carrying out the actual planning with citizens having a peripheral role of watchdog and, ultimately, the “rubber stamp” of the plan gen- erated. In cases where citizens fave the direct responsibility for generating program plans, the time period allowed and the independent technical 4. Residents who were participating in as many as three to five meetings per week were unaware of their minimum rights, responsibilities, and the options avail- able ta them under the program. For example, they did nat realize that they were not required to accept techni- cal help from city technicians they distrusted. resources being made available to them are not adequate to allow them to do anything more than generate very traditional approaches to the prob- lems they are attempting to solve. 5. Most of the technical assistance provided by CDAs and city agencies was of third-rate quality, paternalistic, and condescending. Agency technicians did not suggest innovative options. They reacted bu- reaucratically when the residents pressed for innovative approaches, The vested interests of the old-line city agencies were amajor—albeit hidden—agenda. In general, little or na thought has been given to the means of insuring continued citizen partici- pation during the stage of implementation. In most cases, traditiqnal agencies are envisaged as the implementors of [lode] Cities pragrams and few mechanisms have peen developed for encouraging organizational chapge or change in the method of program delivery within these agencies or for in- suring that citizeng will have some influence over these agencies as they implement Model Cities programs. ... 6. Most CDAs were not engaged in planning that was comprehensive enough to expose and deal with the roots of urban decay. They engaged in “‘meetingitis”’ and were supporting strategies that resulted in “proj- ectitis,"” the outcome of which was a “laundry list’’ of traditional programs to be conducted by traditional agencies in the traditional manner under which slums emerged in the first place. By and large, peaple are once again being planned for. In Most situations the major plan- ning decisions are peing made by CDA staff and approved in a formalistic way by policy boards. 7. Residents were not getting enough informa- tion from CDAs to enable them to review CDA de- veloped plans or to initiate plans of their own as re- quired by HUD. At best, they were getting superficial information. copies of official HUD materials. we At worst, they were not even getting. 8. Most residents were unaware of their rights to be reimbursed for expenses incurred because of par- ticipation—babysitting, transportation costs, and so on. 9. The training of residents, which would en- able them to understand the labyrinth of the federal- state-city systems and networks of subsystems, was an item that most CDAs did not even consider. These findings led to a new public interpretation of HUD's approach to citizen participation. Though the requirements for the seventy-five ‘‘second-round” Model City grantees were not changed, HUD's twenty-seven page technical bulletin on citizen participation repeat- edly advocated that cities share power with residents. cies. It has a veto power in that no plans may be sub- mitted by the CDA to the city council until they have been reviewed, and any differences of opinion have been successfully negotiated with the AWC. Representatives oftheAWC (whichisafederationofneighborhood organizations grouped into sixteen neighborhood “*hubs’’) may attend all meetings of CDA task forces, planning committees, or subcommittees. Though the city council has final veto power over the plan (by federal law), the AWC believes it has a neighborhood constituency that is strong enough to negotiate any eleventh-hour objections the city council might raise when itconsiders such AWC proposed in- novations as an AWC Land Bank, an AWC Economic Development Corporation, and an experimental income maintenance program for 900 poor families. 7. DELEGATED POWER In most cases where power has come to be shared it| — between citizens and public officials can les taken by the citizens, not given by the city. There aIso result in citizens achieving dominant decision- is nothing new about that process. Since those who have making authority over a particular plan or program. power normally want to hang onto it, historically it has Model City policy'boards or CAA delegate agencies on s hadtobewrestedbythepowerlessratherthanproffered whichcitizenshaveaclearmajorityofseatsandgenuine by the powerful. specified powers are typical examples. At this level, the Such a working partnership was negotiated by the ladder has been scaled to the point where citizens hold residentsinthePhiladelphiamodelneighborhood.Like thesignificantcardstoassureaccountabilityofthepro- most applicants for a Model Cities grant, Philadelphia gram to them. To resolve differences, powerholders wrote its more than 400 page application and waved it need to start the bargaining process rather than respond at a hastily called meeting of community leaders. When those present were asked for an endorsement, they angrily protested the city’s failure to consult them on preparation of the extensive application. A community spokesman threatened to mobilize a neighborhood pro- Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; test against the application unless the city agreed to give Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; and Oakland, the citizens a couple of weeks to review the application California. and recommend changes. The officials agreed. “In New Haven, residents of the Hill neighborhood At their next meeting, citizens handed the city ofi- have created a corporation that has been delegated the cials a substitute citizen participation section that power to prepare the entire Model Cities plan. The city, changed the groundrules from a weak citizens’ ad- which received a $117,000 planning grant from HUD, visory role to a strong shared power agreement. Phila- has subcontracted $110,000 of it to the neighborhood delphia’s application to HUD included the citizens’ corporation to hire its own planning staff and consul- substitutionwordforword.(Italsoincludedanew tants.TheHillNeighborhoodCorporationhaseleven citizen prepared introductory chapter that changed the representatives on the twenty-one-member CDA board city’s description of the model neighborhood from a which assures it a majority voice when its proposed plan paternalisticdescriptionofproblemstoarealisticanaly- isreviewedbytheCDA. sis of its strengths, weaknesses, and potentials.) Consequently, the proposed policy-making committee of the Philadelphia CDA was revamped to give five out obtained a subcontract from the CDA for more than .interesting coexistence model for hostile citizen groups of eleven seats to the residents’ organization, which is called the Area Wide Council (AWC). The AWC be resolved through negotiation. This isaparticularly $20,000 per month, which it used to maintain the neigh- borhood organization, to pay citizen leaders $7 per meeting for their planning services, and to pay the salaries of a staff of community organizers, planners, andothertechnicians.AWChasthepowertoinitiatecilshavefinalvetopowersevenwhencitizenshavethe plans of its own, to engage in joint planning with CDA majority of seats on the CDA Board. In Richmond, committees,andtoreviewplansinitiatedbycityagen- California,thecitycouncilagreedtoacitizens’counter- 222 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 to pressure from the other end. Such a dominant decision-making role has been at- tained by residents in a handful of Model Cities includ- ing Cambridge, Massachusetts; Dayton, and Columbus, Another model of delegated power is separate and parallel groups of citizens and powerholders, with pro- . vision for citizen veto if differences of opinion cannot _ ~ . ‘too embittered toward city hall—as a result of past “collaborative efforts’’—to engage in joint planning. Since al Model Cities programs require approval by the city council before HUD will fund them, city coun- ing influence over the outcome of the plan (as long as both parties find it useful to maintain the partnership). One community leader described it “like coming to city hall with hat on head instead of in hand.” In the Model Cities program only about fifteen of the so-called first generation of seventy-five cities have reached some significant degree of power-sharing with residents. In al but one of those cities, it was angry citizen demands, rather than city initiative, that led to the negotiated sharing of power.* The negotiations were triggered by citizens who had been enraged by previous forms of alleged participation. They were both angry and sophisticated enough to refuse to be “conned” again. They threatened to oppose the awarding of a planning grant to the city. They sent delegations to HUD in Washington. They used abrasive language. Negotiation took place under a cloud of suspicion and rancor. 8. CITIZEN CONTROL Demands for community controlled schools, black con- trol, and neighborhood control are on the increase. Though no one in the nation has absolute control, it is very important that the rhetoric not be confused with intent. People are simply demanding that degree of power (or control) which guarantees that participants or residents can govern a program or an institution, be in full charge of policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate the conditions under which “outsiders” may change them. A neighborhood corporation with no intermediaries between it and the source of funds is the model most frequently advocated. A small number of such experi- mental corporations are already producing goods and/or social services. Several others are reportedly in the development stage, and new models for control will undoubtedly emerge as the have-nots continue to press for greater degrees of power over their lives. Though the bitter struggle for community control of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville schools in New York City has aroused great fears in the headline reading public, less publicized experiments are demonstrating that the have-nots can indeed improve their lot by handling the ARNSTEIN to develop a series of economic enterprises ranging from a novel combination shopping-center-public-housing project to a loan guarantee program for local building contractors. The membership and board of the non-. profit corporation is composed of leaders of major com- munity organizations in the black neighborhood. 2. Approximately $1 million ($595,751 for the second year) was awarded to the Southwest Alabama FarmersCooperativeAssociation(SWAFCA) inSelma, Alabama, for a ten-county marketing cooperative for food and livestock. Despite local attempts to intimidate the coop (which included the use of force to stop trucks on the way to market), first year membership grew to 1,150 farmers who earned $52,000 on the sale of their new crops. The elected coop board is composed of two poor black farmers from each of the ten economi- cally depressed counties. 3. Approximately $600,000 supplemental grant) was granted to the Albina Cor- poration and the Albina Investment Trust to create a black-operated, black-owned manufacturing concern us- ing inexperienced management and unskilled minority group personnel from the Albina district. The profit- making wool and metal fabrication plant will be owned by its employees through a deferred compensation trust plan. 4. Approximately $800,000 ($400,000 for the second year) was awarded to the Harlem Common- wealth Council to demonstrate that a community-based ($300,000 in a veto, but the details of that agreement are ambiguous and have not been tested. Various delegated power arrangements are also emerging in the Community Action Program as a result of demands from the neighborhoods and OEO’s most recent instruction guidelines which urged CAAs “to exceed (the) basic requirements” for resident participa- tion.4 In some cities, CAAs have issued subcontracts to resident dominated groups to plan and/or operate one or more decentralized neighborhood program components like a multipurpose service center or a Headstart pro- gram. These contracts usually include an agreed upon line-by-line budget and program specifications. They also usually in¢lude a specific statement of the significant powers that have been, delegated, for example: policy- making; hiring and firing; issuing subcontracts for building, buying, or leasing. (Some of the subcontracts are so broad that they verge on models for citizen control.) development corporation can catalyze and implement an . economic development program with broad community support and participation. After only eighteen months of program development and negotiation, the council will soon launch several large-scale ventures including operation of two supermarkets, an auto service and repair center (with built-in manpower training pro- gtam), a finance company for families earning less than $4,000 per year, and a data processing company. The al black Harlem-based board is already managing a metal castings foundry. Though several citizen groups (and their mayors ) use the rhetoric of citizen control, no Model City can meet the criteria of citizen control since final approval power and accountability rest with the city council. Daniel P. Moynihan argues that city councils are representative of the community, but Adam Walinsky illustrates the nonrepresentativeness of this kind of representation: 15 other federal agencies. Examples include: 1. A $1.8 million grant was awarded to the Hough Area Development Corporation in Cleveland to plan economic development programs in the ghetto and program. Some are even demonstrating that they can do al this with just one arm because they are forced to use their other one to deal with a continuing barrage of local opposition triggered by the announcement that a federal grant has been .given to a community group or an all black group. 1 Who . . . exercises “control” through the repre- sentative process? In the Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto of New York there are 450,000 people—as many as in the entire city of Cincinnati, more than in Most of these experimental programs have been capi- talized with research and demonstration funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity in cooperation with theentirestateofVermont. Yettheareahasonly one high school, and 80 per cent of its teen-agers are dropouts; the infant mortality rate is twice the national average; there are over 8000 buildings abandoned by evesyone but the rats, yet the arca received not one dollag pf urban renewal funds entire job of planning, policy-making, and managing a 223 NOTES 1 The literature on poverty and discrimination and their effects on people is extensive. As an introduction, the following will be 224 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 during the entire first 15 years of that program’s operation; the unemployment rate is known only to God. Clearly, Bedford-Stuyvesant has some special needs; yet it has always been lost in the midst of the city’s eight million. In fact, it took a lawsuit to win for this vast area, in the year 1968, its first Congressman. In what sense can the repre- sentative system be said to have “spoken for” this community, during the long years of neglect and decay? Walinsky’s point on Bedford-Stuyvesant has general Yale University Press, 1968). applicability to the ghettos from coast to coast. It is therefore likely that in those ghettos where residents have achieved a significant degree of power in the Model Cities planning process, the first-year action plans will call for the creation of some new community institutions entirely governed by residents with a speci- fied sum of money contracted to them. If the ground- rules for these programs are clear and if citizens under- 2 The poster is one of about 350 produced in May or June 1968 at Atélier Populaire, a graphics center launched by students from the Sorbonne’s Ecole des Beaux Art and Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. stand that achieving a genuine place in the pluralistic the American Institute of Planners, XXXIV, No. 5 (September scene subjects them to its legitimate forms of give-and- 1968), 290-1. 5U.S., Department of Housing and Urban Development, take, then these kinds of programs might begin to Workable Program for Community Improvement, Answers on Citt- demonstrate how to counteract the various corrosive political and socioeconomic forces that plague the poor. Community Action Agencies,” CAP Grant 9499. In cities likely to become predominantly black 7Robert Coles, ‘Social Struggle and Weariness,” Psychiatry, X XVII (November 1964), 305-15. I am also indebted to Daniel strident M. Fox of Harvard University for some of his general insights into citizens’groupslikeAWCofPhiladelphiawilleven-therapybeingusedasadiversionfromgenuinecitizenparticipation. through population growth, it is unlikely that tually demand legal power for neighborhood 8See, Gordon Fellman, “Neighborhood Protest of an Urban self- Highway,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXXV, government. Their grand design is more likely to call No. 2 (March 1969), 118-22. for a black city ‘hall, achieved by the elective process. 9 James V. Cunningham, “Resident Participation, Unpublished Report prepared for the Ford Foundation, August 1967, p. 54. In cities destined to foreseeable future, it is quite likely that counterpart CDA.11U.S., Department of Housing and Urban Development, tain demands for resource with residents and anticipated the need for a period in which a allocation weighted in favor representative citizens group could be engaged, and the ambiguities remain predominantly white for the 10 Interview with Maxine Kurtz, Technical Director, Denver groups to AWC will press for separatist forms of “Citizen Participation in Model Cities,” Technical Assistance Bulle- neighborhood government that can create and control tin, No. 3 (December 1968). decentralized public services such as police protection, 12 Organization for Social and Technical Innovation, Six-Month Progress Report to Office of Economic Opportunity, Region 1, education systems, and health facilities. Much may February 1, 1969, pp. 27, 28, and 35. depend on the willingness of city governments to enter- 13 In Cambridge, Massachusetts, city hall offered to share power of the poor, reversing gross imbalances of the past. of authority, structure, and process would be resolved. At the re- quest of the mayor, HUD allowed the city to spend several months community control are; of Model Cities planning funds for community organization activi- it supports separatism; it creates balkanization of public ties. During these months, staff from the city manager's office also Among the arguments.against helped the residents draft a city ordinance that created a CDA com- it enables posed of sixteen elected residents and eight appointed public and minority group “hustlers” to be just as opportunistic private agency representatives. This resident-dominated body has services; it is more costly and less efficient; and disdainful of the have-nots as their the power to hire and fire CDA staff, approve al plans, review all white prede- model city budgets and contracts, set policy, and so forth. The cessors; it is incompatible with merit systems and pro- ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the city council also fessionalism; and ironically enough, itcan turn includes a requirement that all Model City plans must be approved out to be by a majority of residents in the neighborhood through a refer- a new Mickey Mouse game for the have-nots by allow- endum. Final approval power rests with the city council by federal ing them to gain control but not allowing them sufh- statute. . 14U.S., Office of Economic Opportunity, OEO Instruction, cient dollar resources to succeed.*® These arguments are Participation of the Poor in the Planning, Conduct and Evaluation not to be taken lightly. But neither can we take lightly of Community Action Programs (Washington, D.C.: December 1, the arguments of embittered advocates 1968), pp. 1-2. of community 15 Adam Walinsky, “Review of Maximum Feasible Misunder- control—that every other means of trying to end their standing” by Daniel P. Moynihan, New York Times Book Review, victimization has failed! February 2, 1969. helpful: B. H. Bagdikian, Iv the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in’ America’ (New York: Beacon, 1964); Paul Jacobs, “The Brutalizing of America,” Dissent, XT (Autumn 196-1), p. 423-8; Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Random House, 1967); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); L. J. Duhl, The Urban Condition; People and Policy in the Metropolis. (New York: Basic Books, 1963); William H. Grier and P. M. Cobbs, Black Rage (New York: Basic Books, 1968); Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1962); Peter Marris and Martin Rein, Dilemmas of Social Reform: Poverty and Community Action in the United States (New York: Atherton Press, 1967); Mollie Orshansky, “Who's Who Among the Poor: A Demographic View of Poverty,” Social Security Bulletin, XXVIL (July 1965), 3-32; and Richard T. Titmuss, Essays on the Welfare State (New Haven: 3 This typology is an outgrowth of a more crude typology I circulated in March 1967 in a HUD staff discussion paper titled “Rhetoric and Reality.” The earlier typology consisted of eight levels that were less discrete types and did not necessarily suggest a chronological progression: Inform, Consult, Joint Planning, Negotiate, Decide, Delegate, Advocate Planning, and Neighbor- hood Control. : 4For an article of some possible employment strategies, see, Edmund M. Burke, “Citizen Participation Strategies,” Journal of zen Participation, Program Guide 7, February, 1966, pp. 1 and 6. 6David Austin, “Study of Resident Participants in Twenty 16 For thoughtful academic analyses of some of the potentials and pitfalls of emerging neighborhood control models, see, Alan Altshuler, “The Demapd For Participation in Large American_ Cities,” An Unpublished Paper prepared for the Urban Institute, December 1968; and Hans .C, Spiegel and Stephen D. Mitten- | thal, “Neighborhood Pqwer apd Control, Implications for Urban Planning,” A Report pr¢pared fos the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Nayembey 1968. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arnstein Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/a56fbc9cbc29716d2fde925de8e226d7.pdf 86d0bf931240ab0175d05179a1fd4068 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A National Design Service Subject The topic of the resource 22 page report for London Seminar including reprint of paper dated 11/76 Description An account of the resource JOIAUSS NOISIO TWNOLVN V 2= THE NEW ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT London Seminar : May 1976 A NATIONAL DESIGN SERVICE Paper No. 2 May 1976 Reprinted June 1976 10 Introduction At the Harrogate Conference last November we called for a National Design Service which would meet the right of everyone to exercise control over the buildings which surround them and in which they live and work. This is a right denied in part or in total to mest people in this country. We saw that the present system of patronage is such that 80% of the population have no real control over what is built, where it is built, and who uses it. They must adapt to an environment which is imposed upon them, at best through a system of spurious choices, and usually not even that. The patrons, a minority of rich and powerful organisations and individuals effectively control the direction of architecture. The design and type of buildings reflect their structure and values. The tendency for these organisations to grow larger by incorporating smaller and weaker ones, results in fewer and fewer patrons commisioning bigger and bigger buildings. Architects' working arrangements are similarly affected. Larger and thus fewer practices are required to handle the big jobs. At present 36% of medium and large private practices carry out 81% of the work. These same offices employ 82% of increasingly frustrated salaried architects. The bigger the jobs, the greater the profit, so it is not surprising that the principal dominated RIBA, while commiserating on the'crisis' in architecture, looks everywhere for the answer except towards the real cause - a system of public and private patronage, in which initial access and subsequent control is severely limited. The remedy for this will not be architectural. It will only be achieved when society's vaues change. exists in the service provided by the albeit in a very limited and unsatisfactory that the present power structures are to achieve our aim of a national decentralised local government offices to local people. Nevertheless has set itself and in the coming how this may be achieved. achieved. 20 We believe that any new form of architectural service must include a formal mechanism of local control through which architects are accountable, not only to their clients, but to those who are affected by their designs. Only in this way can competence and quality of service be measured adequately. Although we would encourage co-ownership in private practice, it is clear that without lcal accountability, such a development would merely extend professional elitism and allow a wider distribution of profits within the prfession. At this stage we do not think that an amended private practice system, however desirable, could provide the type of service which we envisage. Within the present economic system it is only through the state that the majority of people can gain their rightful access to the resources necessary for their material well being. The major step following from this is to bring existing publicity owned resources under the directcontrol of the public at local level, and to ensure that all new facilities brought into state ownership are directly accountable to, and controlled as architecture is concerned they must opinion therefore the basis of a national by local users. As far be the patrons. In our design service already local authority design offices - manner. We recognise must be radically changed if we design service in the form of controlled and accountable this is one of the tasks which months we shall be considering NAM If our strategies for action are to be effective, we need to understand the reasons behind the present unsatisfactory situation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the present processes at work in each area of current architectural patronage and to try to draw out factors which will help to clarify both the kind of service which would be desirable and the means by which that might be 2.0 SYMPTONS AND CAUSES 2.1 Curing Symptons From school of architecture onwards architects are conditioned to accept the context in which they work, and to look for the solutions to the problems of architecture in the symptons of the malaise. After all, anything more searching would involve questioning the status quo. So the architectural establishment, the schools, the RIBA and the magazines have elevated physical form to the position where it is widely accepted that bad design is at the root of all architecture problems. The contention is, of course, that universal good design would solve everything. This preoccupation with form has led us to view, in their time, structural expression modular co-ordination, prefabrication, rationalised traditional et al, as the panacea for all ills. Now energy conservation is being dressed up for this exacting role. To all of these we are told, must be added the ingredient of novelty. Improving the ideas of others is not accepted as valid in this concept - even though we know that the various elements in the Parthenon had been around for centuries before the architect put them together in a particular way. He wasn't asked to invent then. Creation has come to mean innovation - in a substantial way and from scratch. But to innovate is to experiment with the people who will use our buildings. As we do not know who these people are, there is a tendency for the large buildings created for their use to be anonymous also. This is where innovation comes in, where we use a variety of devices to add visual interest. The result is always false and frequently foolish as well. In this respect schemes like Parkhill in Sheffield are at least a more honourable expression of the brief than those produced by architects who, to the delight of the magazines, attempt to conceal the monolithic nature of the brief by the use of complicated and arbitary forms. ignoring the basic issue of patronage. throughout history. people to control the design of their environment. 2.2 Examining the Causes: Architecture is a service industry and it is wholly dependent on external factors for its existence. The fortunes of architecture fluctuate with the fortunes of the patrons. The present high proportion of unemployed salaried architects and the massive number of unemployed building workers is salutory evidence of this basic fact. Architectural patronage has two basic prerequisites - access to finance and control of land. The ability to raise finance is the key aspect for it enables the patron to gain the initial control over land and then to pay for the actual building. Clearly in our society only the state and a minority of private organisations and individuals can aspire to this position. At present, the distribution of architectural patronage is 60% by value public and 40% by value private and we should have a clear understanding of the present system if we are to discover where advances can be made towards a more equitable distribution of patronage in the short term, and a complete redistribution in the long term. Without the demand and feedback from the users, all designs are carried out in a vacuum, and it is naive to look for a new architecture in the means of construction and form, while The designs which we create reflect precisely the values and aspirations of the patron and John Berger has described how this has been true - with one or two exceptions - of art We believe that there will only be a new architecture when the patronage base is radically extended to enable the majority of practice and the relationships between user and architect. 3.0 LAND The last official comprehensive register of all land holdings in this country was produced in 1874. Today there is no official register of private land holdings and all attempts to create one have been systematically blocked in Parliament. From this we can perhaps deduce that the majority of land is in private ownership. Land takes its value not only from its present use but also from its potential use, and it is at its most expensive under the pressure of competing uses in city centres. The use to which the land is put is dictated by the profitability of the use; hence prime sites are always taken by those activities which yield the highest profits. Although the free market in land is tempered somewhat nowadays by the local planning authority, this intervention in itself results in changes in land values. In the docklands area of London, for example as ageing and unprofitable industries close down or move out to green field sites, un-unionised labour and government subsidies, they realise their main asset - land. The most profitable use for thisland is now expensive riverside housing, hotels and yachting marinas for the rich. This change has already begun and without the intervention of the local authorities (under pressure from local people) it would now be well established. It remairsto be seen whether the five dockland Boroughs are able or willing to insist on uses which will regenerate appropriate industry in the area. The end product of the free market in land therefore is not in the interests of the community. Thousands of jobs are lost and local housing problems are not solved. The next three sections discuss briefly the role of land ownership, the link between control of resources and control of architecture, and the resulting effect on design, architectural Similarily in the chain of escalating land values between the virgin land and the speculative house, the original land owner profits, the developer profits on both the land and the houses and the proud new owner buys into the market at the limit of his income. Then the individual house on its small plot of land continues to be a commodity, and the price continues to rise. Because private profit is the motive underlying the free market in land, working people cannot penetrate this market far less control it, except through the medium of the state. It is for this reason that the proportion of publicity owned land is so high in working class communities; as high as 80% for example in parts of the East End of London. But the inadequacies of public finance quite often results in cheap and unsuitable sites being bought for public use, and the need to optimise even this, leads to gross over use. High densities are therefore accepted as the norm for public housing giving rise to balcony access and other manifestations virtually unknown in the private sector. Under the present system of land ownership this is unlikely to change. 4.0 PRIVATE PATRONAGE The building sector financed by private patronage falls into three broad sectors - Industrial, Commercial and private howing. This work accounts for around 63% by vaue of all commissions undertaken by private practice. 4.1 The Patrons The major patrons are those companies and individuals who control these sectors. Financial institutions now ow controlling share holdings in British companies and through their executives and directors dictate the patterns of investment throughout the economy. These are the main private patrons of architecture and although private individuals do exercise patronage, the value is minute in comparison. 4.2 Reasons for Patronage just how short term the benefits were. Money will therefore only be put into tmildings in the first place if that is, or will lead to, the most profitable way of using the money. The type of development, whether industrial, commerical or private housing will be chosen according to the same logic. 4.3 Affect on Architecture The architecture will reflect the directness of the relationship between profit and the building. So if the activity yields the profit, as in industry say, then the building is required merely to house the activity, and little in the way of cosmetics are applied beyond that which is necessary to satisfy the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Planning Officer. On the other hand, speculative housing and office development, are in themselves the means of achieving profit. Sufficient money will therefore be directed into the appearance, commensurate always with the market for which it is aimed. Capital in any company is accumulated by profit. On the basis of its profitability, shares in it are bought through the money market, which finance further development with a view to creating further profit. The money market determines into which sectors resources should flow to gain the greatest return. The money market is otherwise indiscriminate. It is not its function to distinguish between those investments which benefit society as a whole and those which do not. Therefore we have seen moneyflowing out of older and increasingly less profitable industry into very profitable unproductive sectors like property. escalating rents and prices may have brought short term benefits to a minority but it was at the expense of working people. saw house prices disappearing time as they were losing their They even further out of reach at the same in the economy dwindle, the rest of society is beginning to realise The resulting bonanza of jobs. As the productive sectors Be 4.4 User Control of Design? Real user control over the design is achieved when the architect is designing private villas for the directors. In other instances those same directors and executives will certainly control the design process of a new office and factory but they will almost invariably by absentee clients. Where they are not they will be well insulated from reality in the penthouse, surrounded by solar reflecting glass and Barcelona chairs. The workers on the shop floor or in the offices, on the other hand, are still unable to control the design of their environment, (although it is in the interests of the more enlightened managements to indulge in participation) even although that design, as in the case of open plan offices, is a direct function of decisions to change working methods to increase productivity. There is no element of user control in speculative housing either. 62% of this market is designed by private practice but architects and users never meet. Although people who are able to buy into this market gain a certain amount of contxrl through choice, the choice is initially limited by income and location, and further limited in terms of accommodation and design. These have more to do with the developer's profit margins than the buyer's real needs. But the relationship between house prices and earnings is so organised as to exclude half the population and in some working Where it is more profitable, the patrons will elect to build their own offices, which will fulfil the dual function of housing their activities and presenting the required public image. The Commercial Union building is therefore designed to create an aura of prestige, restrained good taste, wealth and stability, while concealing the rather squalid nature of its source of wealth. It fulfils this function admirably. class areas, over three quarters. In a free market house prices 4.5 Public Accountability? The executives who control the building design are responsible only to their shareholders. Their job is to ensure maximum return on investment. The public good does not feature in this equation - nor can it. The people affected by private buildings have no control over the developer's actions other than indirectly through Planning Control. Even where the Planning Officers do profess to have some regard for the ethic of public service, they will be in conflict with and will often be overridden by the local political requirements such as rate income. The arguement is that the interests of the public as a whole takes precedence over the interests of a few local people, no matter how disastrous the effect on their lives may be. Planning Control has failed too often in these situations in the past for us to have any confidence in its ability to safeguard the public interest. Private practice in turn is not accountableto the commmity affected by its designs. Not only is the partners! liability to the client, but the practice is also dependent on the client financially. Not surprisingly therefore, private practice rarely opposes the client's demands. 4.6 Conclusion. Control over design cannot be separated from control over resources. In the private sector these resources are controlled by a minority - formerly rich individuals, now the representatives of giant institutions. The Private patron of architecture adopts this role solelyto create more wealth, and is not accountable in any will always be out of reach of the majority of the working class. Any one who doubts this should consider what £60 per week buys in the Londonhousing market, and that many people earn a lot less than this. meaningful way to the people affected by his buildings. Similarly, =10= alter this basic fact. 5.0 PUBLIC PATRONAGE: Public patronage of architecture comes through the central state, the nationalised industries, but in the main through local authorities. It accounts for all the work produced by public sector architects, and 37% of work by value of private practice. In total the state is responsible for 60% of the Building Industry's annual turnover. 5.1 Reasons for State Patronage. It has been said that the state fulfils two basic functions. The first is to try to promote or maintain the conditions in which economic growth is both possible and profitable for the private sector. Secondly the state trys to maintain and promote the conditions for social harmony, and make the existing social order seem acceptable. Both factors are at work when the state finances building. On the one hand, the state must intervene in the arena previously described, to provide enough housing, hospitals and schools to prevent the population from becoming restless. On the other hand, a well housed, healthy and reasonably educated working class are necessary if economic growth is to be achieved and sustained. The main organ of this system of control is the Local Authority. 5.2 Local Authorities Finance: The largest part of Local Authority finance is in the form of Private practice is in business to service these interests. Under a system of private patronage the needs of working people will be in conflict with the dictates of the client. Profit sharing and co-operative working arrangements may increase the material well being of the salaried architect but they will not central government grants. A much smaller proportion comes from ie rates. The services provided from these funds, constitutes the return we get on taxes and rates paid by us the public. Pressure to hold down rates and taxes results in a short fall of finance, and local authorities are forced to resort to the private money market to make up the difference. This is a very lucrative business for the private money lenders, to the extent that 1/3 of the housing expenditures of an Inner London Borough goes into paying back interest to the finance companies. Whatever the source, the public pays it eventually, either through increased taxes, rates and charges, or by the reduction in services for which we thought we had already paid - witness the present expenditure cuts. 5.3 Control over Resources The directness of this flow of our resourcetso the state appears to be in inverse proportion to the extento which we,the public, are able to control, or even understand the mechanism for producing what we have paid for. local Authorities are the local arm of central government and are obliged by law to carry out central policies, whether or not local politicians believe that these are in the interests of their constituents. All public resources are therefore controlled from the centre through grants, approvals and regulating machinery such as cost allowances and Housing Yardsticks. 5.4 User Control of Design? Control of architectural patronage at local authority level is power being wielded by the committee are serviced by their departmental up by arguments prepared by a large of this formidable array it is little little more than rubber stamp councillors are unable to play an active role in controlling services exercised by the relevant spending committee, a large part of that Chairmen. The committee Chairmen chief officer whose advice is backed team of specialists. In the face wonder that the full council can do committee decisions, and that even ward to the people they represent, let alone the users themselves. oe which has no doubts as to where "participation" begins and ends. 5.5 Design We are only too familiar with the effect which scarce,minimum resources and the lack of user control has on the buildings. While there is just not enough money, the design decisions which have to be made by the architect in the absence of user instructions, undoubtedly mean that what money there is will often be allocated wrongly. 5.6 Public Accountability of the Architect? The local authority departments - edwation, housing, social services, architecture etc, are concerned with the provision of city wide services and by andlarge they treat the city as a whole. Sectional interests, whether of wards or of classes of people are generally subordnated to those of the general population. Centralised offices follow naturally from this city wide view. The departmental chief officers are accountable to the Council via the Chairman of the relevant Committee, and a hierarchal pyamidal structure must follow. The individual job architect who actually produces the work is responsible to the Chief Officer through a series of steps in the hierachy. The chain of accountability of job architect to user is through: group architect, principal architect, chief architect, spending department chief officer, committee chairman, committee, ward councillor, User. Seven steps between architect and user. Those steps are so immovable and concerned with prestige, screening and face saving operations that in practice the local authority jobs architect is not accountable to the userat all. Contact between user and architect is discouraged if not forbidden, and excépt for example where a head teacher is involved in the design of a replacement school, there are few opportunities for the user to gain control over the design. It is a system in which a certain product is demanded of individual architects The product is imposed or "sold" to local groups by apolitical leadership in return for continued employment. 5.7 Conclusion. are substantial indeed. maintained existing council developments. 6.0 ALTERNATIVES The trend towards rehabilitation and small scale infill in areas of predominantly old privately rented or privately owned working class housing has resulted in the growth of a third area of patronage, which is interesting in terms of its potential for user control, and the changed attitudes and raised expectations which could follow from it. 6.1 Sources of Finance: Finance is provided through a diverse range of public and private grants. In the private sector it includes grants from developers and various trust funds which are used to resource community design services arse The changes which are necessary to convert this monolithic structure into a freely available and loally controlled National Design Service However, in setting out the ills and authoritarian practice of government structures it is important not to lose sight of the more fundamental fact that these structures directly or through grants supply the resources, and buy the land necessary to meet basic social requirements. It is not possible farpeople to demand control over the design of buildings if there are no resources to build them. The relevance of public resources to the question of control is seen most clearly in housing. In old working class communities up and down the country there are millions of people living in clearance areas in which badly built spec housing of the last century has rotted for decades. Housing which may often need redevelopment rather than rehabilitation. The long term cuts in public spending in order to make good the lack of private in industry and the economy mean the fact that resources for new homes is not to be made available. areas have become marginal, peripheral up homes is what people will be offered alongside increasingly under that people inthese areas are faced with These and in the end expendable. Patched investment Ae. so far as they fulfil this hidden motive. Public grants, which usually cover a high proportion of land, construction and design costs, range from improvement grants for individual dwellings through to the finance available to Housing Associations via the Housing Corporation. HAAs and GIAs can call on higher grants and special L.A. loans — they also have available important compulsory powers. 6.2 Control of Finance: The key aspect, as always, is who controls the use to which the finance isi put. Private sources often leave considerable discretionary power over the use of such resources, within the overall terms of the grant. Projects like ASSIST are examples of how such community design offices can be made accountable to and controlled by local residents, and resident controlled Housing Associations. HAAs and GIAs are designated by the local authority usually at their own behest. It should be noted however that in England, local residents also have the right to petition the local authority to have their area so designated. The local authority sets up locally based design teams to carry out the work and although this is a step forward, they invariably limit the role of residents to an advisory capacity. Architects are only directly accountable to local people where the residents themselves control the process through their own Housing Associations, and it is in this area that there has been the greatest advance. The current direction of resources into non-resident controlled housing of a kind not provided by the local authority. Such sources of finance usually ultimately rest upon less than respectable activities and hence the importance of philanthropic gestures to buy an honest and respectable image. This is not an argument against pursuing such funds; merely a reminder that such grants are renewable only in of local people. 6.3 Conclusion. and tightly controlled beaurocracy in the Town Hall. interest rather than merely extending the share of high profits. 7.0 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS Local Authorities already provide a public architectural service through a national network of design offices. Can thisstructure be changed into a freely available, locally controlled national design service or should we provide a parallel service? As stated at the beginning of this paper, in our opinion the local authorities associations is no substitute. It may bring work and profits to private architects and other professionals but it is at the expense The importance of this third area of patronage lies in its scope for change, not only in itself, but also as a means to raise expectations of the service which could be provided by the Local Authority. As such it is a pointer to the future direction of Local Authority services. It is possible for the resident organisation which controls the resources to be both client and user. Although this has not been the norm, where it has occurred, it has been eminently successful. e.g. ASSIST in Govan, and Rod Hackney at Black Road Macclesfield. do provide in the long term the basis of a national design service. While there is considerable room for improvement, especially in terms of local control of design, in local authority HAAs and GIAs, it is difficult to believe that residents, having once experienced a more direct service, will settle for anything less in the future, or that the design teams will readily accept their return to a centralised A further by-product of this area of patronage is the opportunity it has given to change architect's working arrangements. Hierarchical power structures can and have been replaced by collective authority and co-operative working relationships. The choice is open to work for a reasonable salary and turn the excess fees over to the public We have seen that local authorities are centrally important as the main and often the only structure through which people can exert demands and gain the necessary access to land, finance and other resources. In seeking to change them we should not forget that they are equally important as structures of authoritarian social control which cannot afford to and have no intention of giving away power to the grass roots. In principle, local authorities are structures which cannot be radically changed in our society, of that we should have no illusions. However, we have seen from history that as the lowest tier of government they are not only necessary from above but are also susceptible to the threats of vigorous pressure from below. They can be made to change direction. 7.1 Campaign within Local Authorités. A national design service as we envisage it means control over local resources and local design teams by local residents. This is not going to happen overnight and we should begin in those areas where changes have already occurred and where the potential for further change exists. Within our own localities we should therefore: * support the demands of local groups who represent the interests of the users and who call for direct control over thelocal authority design process. * support the demands of residents committees for executive control over HAAs and GIAs. * campaign for the rapid extension of HAAs and GIAs. * support tenants demands for control over present and future local authority housing. The public expenditure cuts have already resulted in tenants being "allowed" to control maintenance in many areas. 26s 2i7= 7.2 Alternative Services: In parallel with action within the local authorities we should initiate a number of short life locally controlled design offices. By winning public support such projects can be used as practical examples to raise expectations of people's real right, and to pressurise local councils into incorporating changes. ASSIST have done this with success in Glasgow, and we endorse their view that local projects must be seen as vehicles for change, not as cop-outs for discontented architects. These demands and activities will inevitably be strongly opposed. NAM must therefore develop strategies to enable these demands to be achieved. These strategies should include means whereby sympathetic architects can organise inside local authorities, and demand direct accoutability to users and the decentralisation of offices. We shall require the support of local groups, local councillors, trades councils, UCCAT and the public service unions. Finally, in considering our strategies for change we should be aware that change in the past has often been a two edged sword. Benefits for the majority have usually been gained at the expense of reinforcing the status quo. We should always remember that our concept of a freely available, national design service must in the long term mean that the resources of land and finance are to be controlled by the majority of the population. They will be the new patrons. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource North London Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray & John Allan 3cc Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 1976 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/508efbdd7948ae2e322616fdba4b3b60.pdf d61a52c560d42596917a96f50a1e2f99 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A National Design Service Doc 1 Subject The topic of the resource Paper presented by John Murray to the first NAM Congress at Harrogate 21-23 November 1975 as requested by Brian Anson Description An account of the resource 1.0 Introduction A NATIONAL DESIGN SERVICE Paper No 2. May 1976 At the Harrogate Conference last November we called for a National Design Service which would meet the right of everyone to exercise control over the buildings which surround them and in which they live and work. This is a right denied in part or in total to most people in this country. We saw that the present system of patronage is such that 80% of the population have no real control over what is built, where it is built, and who uses it. They must adapt to an environment which is imposed upon them, at best through a system of spurious choices, and usually not even that. Architectsworking arrangements are similarly affected. Larger and thus fewer practices are required to handle the big jobs. At present 36% of medium and large private practices carry out 81% of the work. These same offices employ 82% of increasingly frustrated salaried architects. The bigger the jobs, the greater the profit, so it is not surprising that the principal dominated RIBA, while commisera- ting on the ‘crisis’ in architecture, looks everywhere for the answer except towards the real cause - a system of public and private patronage, inwhichinitial access and subsequent control is severely limited. The remedy for this will not be architectural. It will only be achieved when society's values change. Within the present economic system it appears to us that it is only through the state that the majority of people can gainetheir. right= ful access to the resources necessary to have control over their environment. In our opinion therefore, the existing service provided by local government offices, provides, albeit in a very limited and unsatis- factory manner, the basis of a national design service. We recog- nise that to achieve our aim, the present power structures must be radically changed. Nevertheless we shall press for a freely avail- able national design service in the form of decentralised local government offices, coupled to local accountability and control. The patrons, a minority of rich and powerful organisations and indi- viduals effectively control the direction of architecture. The design and type of buildings reflect their structure and values. The tendency for these organisations to grow larger by incorporating smaller and weaker ones, results in fewer and fewer patrons commi= ssioning bigger and bigger buildings. The purpose of this paper is to examine the present processes at work in each case of current architectural patronage and to try to draw out factors which will help to clarify both the kind of service which would be désirable and the means by which that might be achieved. 2.0 SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES 2.1 Curing symptoms From school of architecture onwards architects are conditioned to accept the context in which they work, and to look for the solu-. tions to the problems of architecture in the symptons of the malaise. After all, anything more searching would involve questioning the status quo. So the architectural establishment, the schools, the RIBA and the magazines have elevated physical form to the position where it is widely accepted that bad design is at the root of all architecture problems. The contention is, of course, that universal good design would solve everything. This preoccupation with form has led us to view in their time, structural expression, modular coordination, prefabrication, rationalised traditional and so on, as the panacea for all ills. Now energy conservation is being dressed up for this exacting role. To all of these we are.told, must be added the ingredient of creati- vity. Improving the ideas of others is not accepted as valid in this concept -— even though we know that the various elements jn the Parthenon had been around for centuries before the architect put them together ina particular way. He wasn't asked to invent them. Creation has come to mean innovation — and in a substantial way and from scratch. But to innovate is to experiment with the people who will use our buildings. As we do not know who these people are, there is a tendency for the large buildings created for their use to be anonymous also. This is where innovation comes in, where we use a variety of devices to add visual interest. The result is always false and frequently foolish as well. In this respect schemes like Park- hill in Sheffield are at least a more honourable expression of the brief than those produced by people like Darbourne and Darke who, to the delight of the magazines, attempt to conceal the monolithic -nature of the brief by the use of complicated and arbitary forms. The latest "answer" as per participation in Bykker, looks suspi- ciously like yet another attempt to fool the working class. Without the demand and feedback from the users, all designs are carried out in a vacuum, and it is naive to look for a new archi- 3.0 LAND tecture in the means of construction and form, while ignoring the basic issue of patronage. ‘The designs which we create reflect precisely the values and aspira- tions of the patron and John Berger has described how this has been true - with one or two exceptions —- of art throughout history. We believe that there will only be a new architecture when the patronage base is radically extended to enable the majority of people to control the design of their environment. 2.2 Examining the Causes Money and land are necessary prerequisites of architectural patron- age, but the ability to raise and control finance is the key aspect and the basis of all patronage, for it enables the patron to gain control over land. Clearly in our society, only the state and a minority of private organisations and individuals can hope to be in this position, and the distribution is 40% by value private and 60% by value public architectural patronage. We should have a clear understanding of the present system, if we are to discover where advances can be made towards‘a more equitable distribution of patronage in the short term, and a complete redis-— tribution in the long term. The next three sections discuss briefly the role of land ownership, the link between control of resources and control of architecture, and the resulting effect on design, architectural practice and the relationships between user and architect. The last official comprehensive register of all land holdings in this’country was produced in 1874. Today there is no official register of private land holdings and all attempts to create one have been systematically blocked in Parliament. From this we can perhaps deduce that the majority of land is in private ownership. While we do not know-the average division of land between private and public ownership, we do know that in working class communities the proportion of publicly owned land is very high; as high as 80% for example, in-parts of the East End of London. Although the ownership of land is a necessary prerequisite of archi- tectural patronage clearly the converse is not true, as most owner occupiers have no direct contact or control over architects services. Land takes its value not only from its present use but also from its potential use, and it is at its most expensive under the pressure of competing useS5 as in city centres. The use to which the land is put is dictated by the profitability of the use; hence prime sites are taken by those activities which yield the highest profits. Although the free market in land is tempered somewhat nowadays by the local planning authority, this intervention in itself results in changes in land values. Because private profit is the motive underlying the free market in land, working people cannot penetrate this market far less control it, except through the medium of the state. But the inadequacies of public finance quite often results in cheap and unsuitable sites being bought for public use, and the need to optimise even this, leads to gross over:use. High densities are therefore accepted as the norm for public housing, giving rise to balcony access and other manifestations virtually unknown in the private sector. Under the present system of land ownership this is unlikely.to change. 4.0 PRIVATE PATRONAGE The building sector financed by private patronage falls into three broad sectors — Industrial, Commercial and private housing. This work accounts for around 63% by value of all commissions undertaken by private practice. h.|) The Patrons The major patrons are those companies and individuals who control these sectors. Financial institutions now own controlling. share- holdings in British companies and through their executives and directors dictate the patterns of investment throughout the economy. These are the main private patrons of architecture, and although private individuals exercise patronage, the value is minute in comparison. 4.2 Reasons for Patronage 4.3 Affect on Architecture The architecture will reflect the directness of the relationship between profit and the building. So if the activity yields the profit, as in industry say, then the building is required merely to house the activity, and little in the way of cosmetics are applied beyond that which is necessary to satisfy the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Planning Officer. 4.4 User Control of Design? Capital in any company is accumulated by profit. On the basis of its profitability, shares in it are also bought through the money market, which together finance further development with a view to creating further profit. The money market determines into which sectors resources should flow to gain the greatest return. On the other hand, speculative housing and office development, are in themselves the means of achieving profit. Sufficient money wil] therefore be directed into the appearance, commensurate always with the market for which it is aimed. Where it is more profitable, the patrons will elect to build their own offices, which will fulfil the dual function of housing their activities and presenting the required public image. The Commer-— cial Union Building is therefore designed to create an aura of prestige, restrained good taste, wealth and stability, while con- cealing the rather squalid nature of its source of wealth. It ful- fils this function admirably. Real user control over the design is achieved when the architect is designing private villas for the directors. In other instances those same directors and executives wi 1] certainly control the design process of a new office or factory but they will almost invariably be absentee clients. Where they are not they will be well insulated from reality in the penthouse, surrounded by solar reflecting glass and Barcelona.chairs. Money will therefore only be put into buildings in the first place if that is, or will lead to, the most profitable way of using the money. The type of development, whether industrial, commercial or private housing will be chosen according to the same logic. The workers on the shop floor or in the offices, on the other hand, are still unable to control the design of their environment, (although it is in the interests of the more enlightened manage- ments to indulge in participation) even although that design, as in the case of open plan offices, is a direct function of decisions to change working methods to increase productivity. There is no element of user control in speculative housing either. 62% of this market is designed by private practice but architects and users never meet. Although people who are able to buy into this market gain a certain amount of control through choice, the choice is initially limited by income and location, and further limited in terms of accommodation and design. . These have more to do with the developer's profit margins than the buyer's real needs. But the relationship between house prices and earnings is so organ- ised as to exclude half the population and in some working class areas, over three quarters. Ina free market house prices wil] always be out of reach of the majority of the working class. Any- one who doubts this should consider what £60 per week buys in the London housing market and remember that many people earn a lot less than this. 4.5 Public Accountability? The executives who control the building design are responsible only to their shareholders. Their job is to ensure maximum return on investment. The public good does not feature in this equation - nor can it. The people affected by private buildings have no control over the developer's actions other than indirectly through Planning Control. Even where the Planning Officers. do profess to have some regard for the ethic of public service, they will be in conflict with, and wil] often be overridden by the local political requirement for rate income. The argument is that the interests of the public as a whole takes precedence over the interests of a few local people, no matter how disastrous the effect on their lives may be.. Planning Control has failed too often in these situations in the past for us to have any confidence in its ability to safeguard the public interest. Private practice in turn is not accountable to the community affected by its designs. Not only is the partners' liability to the client, but the practice is also dependent on the client finan- cially. Not surprisingly therefore, private practice rarely opposes the client's demands. 4.6 Conclusion. Control over design cannot be separated from control over resources. In the private sector these resources are controlled by a minority - formerly rich individuals, now the representatives of giant instit— utions. The Private patron of architecture adopts this role solely to create more wealth, and is not accountable in any meaningful way to the people affected by his buildings. -Simi larly, Private prac- tice is in business to service these interests. Under a system of private patronage the needs of working people will be in conflict with the dictates of the client. Profit sharing and cooperative working arrangements may increase the material well being of the salaried architect but they will not altar this basic fact. 5.0 PUBLIC PATRONAGE: Public patronage of architecture comes through the central state, the nationalised industries, but in the main through local authori- ties. Jt accounts for all the work produced by public sector architects, and 37% of work by value of private practice. In total the state is responsible for 60% of the Building industry's annual turnover. 5.1 Reasons for State Patronage. It has often been argued before that the state fulfils two basic functions. The first is to try to promote or maintain the condi- tions in which economic growth is both possible and profitable for ‘the private sector. Secondly the state trys to maintain and pro- mote the conditions for social harmony, and make the existing social order seem acceptable. Both factors are at work when the state finances building. On the one hand, the state must intervene in the arena previously described, to provide enough housing, hospitals and schools to prevent the population from becoming restless. On the other hand, a well housed, healthy and reasonably educated working class are necessary if economic growth is to be achieved and sustained. The main, organ of this system of control is the local Authority. 5.2 Local Authority Finance: The largest part of local Authority finance is in the form of central government grants. A much smaller proportion comes from rates. The services provided from these funds, constitutes the return we. get on taxes and rates paid by us the public. Pressure to hold down rates and taxes results in a short fall of finance, and local authorities are forced to resort to the private money market to make up the difference. This is a very lucrative business for the private money lenders, to the extent that 1/3 of the housing expenditures of an Inner London Borough goes into paying back interest to the finance companies. 5.3 Control over Resources The directness of the flow of resources to the state is in inverse proportion to the extent to which the public are able to control, or even understand the mechanism for producing what we have paid for, local authorities are the local arm of the central state, and are obliged by law to carry out central policies, whether or not local politicians believe that these are in the interests of their constituents. All public resources are therefore controlled from the centre through grants, approvals and regulating machinery such as cost allowances and Housing Yardsticks. 5.4 User Control of Design? Control of architectural patronage at local authority level is exercised by the relevant spending committee, a large part of that power being wielded by the committee Chairman. The committee Chairmen are serviced by their departmental chief officer whose advice is backed up by arguments prepared bya large team of specialists. In the face of this formidable array it is little wonder that the full council can do little more than rubber stamp committee decisions, and that even ward councillors are unable to play an active role in controlling services to the people they represent, let alone the users themselves. Except, for example, where a head teacher is involved in the design of a replacement school, there are few other opportunities for the user to gain control over the design. It is a system in which a certain product is demanded of individual architects in return for continued employ ment. The product is imposed or "sold" to local groups by a poli- tical leadership which has no doubt as to where "participation" begins and ends. Whatever the source, the public pays it eventually, either through increased taxes, rates and charges, or by the reduction in services for which we thought we had already paid — witness the present expenditure cuts. 5.5 Design We are only too familiar with the effect which scarce, minimum re- sources and the lack of user control has on the buildings. Whi le there is just not enough money, the design decisions which have to be made by the architect in the absence of user instructions, un=- doubtedly.mean that what money there is will often be allocated wrongly. 5.6 Public Accountability of the Architect? The local authority departments - education, housing, social services, architecture etc. are concerned with the provision of city wide services and by and large they treat the city as a whole. Sectional interests, whether of wards or of classes of people are generally subordinated to those of the. general population. 5.7 Conclusion. . Centralised offices follow naturally from this city wide view, the departmental chief officers are accountable to the Counci| via the Chairman of the relevant committee, and a hierarchal pyramidal structure must follow. The individual job architect who actually produces the work is responsible to the Chief Officer through a series of steps in the hierachy. The chain of accountability of job architect to user is through: group architect, principal architect, Chief architect, spending department chief officer, committee chairman, committee, ward councillor, User. Seven steps between architect and user. Those steps are so immovable and con= cerned with prestige,screening and face saving operations that in practice the local authority jobs architect is not accountable to the user at all. The changes which are necessary to convert this monolithic structure into a freely available and locally controlled National Design Service are substantial indeed. However, in setting out the ills and authoritarian practice of government structures it is important not to lose sight of the more fundamental fact that these structures directly or. through grants supply the resources, and buy the land necessary to meet basic — social requirements. It is not possible for people to demand control over the design of buildings if there are no resources to build them. The relevance of public resources to the question of control is seen most clearly in housing. In old working class communities up and down the country there are millions of people living in clearance areas in which badly built spec housing of the last century has rotted for decades. Housing which needs redeve=~ lopment not rehabilitation. The long-term cuts in public spending in order to make good the lack of private investment in the economy mean that people in these areas are faced with the fact that re= sources for new homes is not to be made available. These areas have become marginal, peripheral and in the end expendable. Patched up rehab. is what people will be offered alongside increasingly under maintained existing counci|] developments. 6.0 ALTERNATIVES The third area of patronage is interesting in terms of the poten- tial for raising expectations of what can be possible in the way of alternative practice. 6.1 Source of Finance: In the private sector it includes grants from developers like Wates to Assist or the Ealing project andtrust funds of one kind or another to enable the provision of special buildings and services. Such sources of finance usually ultimately rest upon less than respectable activities and hence the importance of philanthropic gestures to buy an honest and respectable image. This is not an argument against pursuing such funds; merely a reminder that such grants are only renewable insofar as they fulfil this hidden motive. They usually dry up when they fail to do so. 6.2 Control of Finance: The source of finance is provided throughadiverse range of public and private grants which to varying degrees cover land, design and development costs. Grants from public sources include H.A.A.'s, GIA's, Housing Associations via the Housing Corporation and possibly Urban Aid in resourcing community design services. But once secured they often create considerable discretionary power over handling such resources, within the overall terms of the grant. This power is expressed in the growth of resident=controleld housing associations which employ technical services on their own terms. This is by no means general. Local Authority controlled H.A.A.'s usually strictly limit the role of residents and on the other hand many Housing. Associations are merely private practices masquerading in disguise. Control of their activities by local residents. is not on their agenda either. Lfwebelievethatcompetenceandqualityareintegrallytied-up with who controls the process, then it should also give rise to designs which are welcomed and liked. 6.3 User Control and Local Accountability: But because of the facility for innovation there is scope for change in the traditional pattern of patronage. It is possible for the resident organisation which controls and manages the resources to be both client and user.. In employing the services of an architect there is no ambiguity about accountability. Where resources are controlled via the 'professionals' a serious attempt to place such structures in aposition of accountability to a locally controlled Management Committee can be innovatory. However a major drawback is the same as that which arises when work is done on a voluntary basis. Real power rests on being able to change your designer if you don't like them. Limited access to alternative source of such skills distorts the relationship on either side. 6.4 Practice Structures: The further by-product which ‘alternative projects' can create is in the office structure. Hierarchal power structures normal to private and public offices can be replaced by collective authority:| and cooperative working relationships. A further choice is to work for a reasonable salary turning the excess fees over to the public interest, rather than merely extending the sharing of excess profits. C ONC LUS |ONS This summary of the three ways in which architectural patronage is exercised provides the foundation for a more realistic discussion of what strategies can be employed to begin to lay the basis for a national design service within the real control of ordinary working people. — Local Authority Services Local] Authorities are clearly, centrally important as the main structure through which people can exert demands and gain the necessary access to land and resources created by taxation and rates, They are also equally important structures of authoritarian social control which cannot afford and have no intention of giving © away power to the grassroots. In principle, local authorities are structures which cannot be radically changed in our present society —- of that we should have no illusions. However, as the lowest tier of government they are not only necessary from above but are also susceptible to the threats of vigorous pressure from below. In our view we must campaign to support the demands of those local groups, who represent the interests of future users, and who cal] for a direct relationship of control over local authority architects delegated to design peoples future homes etc. - control which “extends to rejection of unsatisfactory proposals. Such a demand will inevitably be strongly opposed and in NAM we need a strategy which can help sympathetic architects to organise inside local authorities, to demand direct accountability to users and the creation of small locally based offices. To protect individuals, we need to secure the support of public service unions and UCCAT for the principle of this demand. Alternative Initiatives: No-one who has worked in a local authority can listen to talk of changing Local Authorities without asinking heart! This leads on to the second conclusion, which is that one of the best ways to raise expectations of what people's real rights over design are, is to increase the number and range of alternative short-term initia- tives. Where they are successful in winning public support they can be used as practical examples to pressurize local: councils into incorpora- -ting changes. More widely, we must never ignore the basic fact that small scale alternatives are based on the limited sponsorship of private or public sources of finance which can usually only meet the demands of a small number of specific groups of people. But they can offer the means to work and demonstrate how local groups and neighbourhoods can effectively extend control over decisions and resources effecting peoples lives. Local design centres which place themselves in a formal relationship of accountability to the community have a contribution to make in this process. We need a strategy for pursuing sponsorship of such initiatives. These two major conclusions and the way they should be carried forward are suggested as the basis of discussion. What does this imply in terms of a national design service? Local Authorities already control.a national structure of public sector architects. Do we wish to or change this existing structure or provide a parallel service? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Murray Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Nov 1975 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/dc4369feadfeb1022f050a519d19cdca.pdf 754fc750fbbc3a249e5d94b12df73af9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource a REAL guide to Liverpool Subject The topic of the resource What architects do-some views from the ground by group of Liverpool architects Description An account of the resource ahs dt Merseyside Weak Architecture 1945 -1995? p 5 Raverttain and Price 10p . Blind Guide (25p &employedRIGAmember) We only work here! Written by a group of designers in Liverpool interested in looking for real solutions to thecitie yOoblems aREAL— torosea| Living ‘on’ Cities 1.WHAT DO ARCHITECTS DO? ~ 2.WHO CONTROLS US? 3. WHAT ARCHITECTS HAVE DONE IN LIVERPOOL. 1. WHAT ARCHITECTS DO — SOME VIEWS FROM THE GROUND. The following summarises discussions between people working for different arch’ ts practices during a series of ‘designers meetings’ held in Liverpool in the first uif of 1978. Most people know we have something to do with designing buildings, but what isitreally like? A. HOUSING — which makes up about 50% of al buildings built. 4. WHERE ARE WE NOW, AND HOW DO WE CONTINUE? In Liverpool one years housing output is made up by: Housing Co-ops and Associations doing about 1,000 conversions and 200 new houses. Council new housing, falling from 966 completions this year to less than 60 by 1982. Building companies ‘build for sale’, just started with 670 completions this year with a total of 2250 completed by 1982. Also there is the council’s modernisation programme programme and some grant improvement work, 5. THE ‘REPRODUCTION’ OF ARCHITECTS Clearance programmes have virtually stopped, and with Housing Associations rehabil- itating the remaining stock at a fairly constant rate or providing ‘specialist’ new houses (pensioners, young people etc.) the large numbers of empty sites around previously ear marked for council redevelopment will be now rapidly filled with low-density, suburban- type housing produced by the speculative divisions of Unit, Wimpey, Broseley and other familiar building firms. The council's own building programme is rapidly grinding toa halt. In Liverpool, the need is to organise and co-ordinate action and discussion between architects and other groups Designers need to open up a description of their skills which enables them to work alongside other groups rather than feeling that if they do not lead, they have failed. There is an increasing number of examples of environmental and building work being done in either a collective or co-operative way. These two articles are written partly from discussions held in the first half of this year by people interested in forming a non-professional group of building designers Now a clearer picture has emerged, a group will be formed in the autumn to continue analysis, formulate acticn on certain issues, and take on projects. If you are working in architecture or building design, want to know more about architectural organisation and practice, doing or needing projects which involve a Housing Associations are directly controlled by central government's Housing Corp- oration, originally intended to encourage small-scale organisations to develop housing which was more responsive to people’s needs (and architects and designers would be able to work more closely with tenants). The local authority system was seen to have become too cumbersome and type-cast. Now, however, the two Liverpool ‘giants’ which do the majority of the work have almost equally hierarchical structures. Another prob- lem is that the independence of associations from the local council and ‘democracy’ leaves them open to control in some cities by managers who pursue their own self-inter- est to the extent that they become like the old private landlords. Architects who discussed their work in a larger association felt they were being edged out of the hierarchy by more politically-oriented housing and building managers or surveyors. The idea of a closer relationship with tenants in design has faded as ‘feedback’ from tenants is chanelled in the form of the association management's briefing of the architectural team. Architects seldom have a place on a management team, and the con- trolling Housing Corporation itself has a distinct lack of architect members. Discussion of the range of different design possibilities, or factors such as the need for better methods of energy conservation to keep heating costs down in the future are therefore left out of the associations’ policies. In this situation design has become, like many other jobs, mechanistic: tight Housing Corporation control has squeezed design. Pressure on architects’ fees is forcing them to minimise time spent in the important early stages of design when liaison with tenants could be most useful. With only half a day during an average week spent on the drawing board, the rest of the time is taken up with form-filling and bureacratic pro- cedures, The cost of any such design choices as can be made is often outweighed pure- ly by the amount the cost of work rises while waiting for central government decisions. Preparatory work done on schemes which are subsequently axed is not paid for. Although architects can be rightly criticised for wasting money in the past, to cut out design altogether is both to threaten our jobs and waste even more money by not designing what tenants need. collective way of working etc., contact: ; ‘Designers Meeting’, c/o School of Architecture, University, Liverpool. The contributors to group discussion were:— Mike Brown, Paul Coats, Chris Cripps, Robb MacDona Bill Halsall, Jonty Godfrey, Frank Horton, Nigel J Graham Ward and others. The articles as published 4o not necessarily represent the Id, Don Field, Pete Gommon, ones, Alison Lindsay, Weak and its 1978 Conference in Liverpool: views of contributors. n from the RIBA‘s brochure for Merseyside Architecture The cover is take sares ‘Living in Cities. The Housing Co-ops, with a much smaller turnover, offer the possibility of tenant con- trol in that tenants’ co-ops own the houses by paying only a nominal membership fee. In-house architects are service agencies to the co-ops, and people working in this situation felt that, as a result, the housing product was a better deal for tenants. But the co-ops tend to be sited only in the city’s ‘crisis areas’ and don’t give an opportunity for better design as such: architects had become involved in forming a more direct relat- ionship with tenants, builders and the Housing Corporation in places in which any of the other housing solutions would be unworkable. The architect was merely outlining the rigours of housing legislation, circulars and cost-constraints (e.g. bog-roll holders are out this year — too expensive) to tenants, or explaining drawings to unskilled build- ers. Whether or not anyone thinks this is what architects should be doing, it points to the waste of the lengthy professional training needed to qualify for this job. Altern: atively, people with such skills can see how their time is spent in the implementation of tightly-controlled procedures which overrule such opportunities as might arise from more time to design, both in detail, and at the level of the whole way in which the existing street and community patterns are being reinforced. B. INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS Industrial building is one of the few areas being encouraged, and many private practices must have been cocking an eye in this direction as welfare state and other sectors have been cut back. But architects have not traditionally had much to do with factory design Such larger factories as are at present built on peripheral estates seem to be designed by developers and system builders or architects directly employed on a permanent basis by the insustries themselves. Most of these firms are south-eatern or internationally based, so their factories are not designed in Liverpool. Larger Liverpool-born firms, on the other hand, are doing little more than minor repair and extension work at present. Since 1974 the cuts in state expenditure have meant that resources have been redir- ected into stimulating industrial production. It is the state-developed Advance Factory Units which have produced a major source of industrial architecture work in Liverpool The developers are either the local authority, who use their own architects department, or the English Industrial Estates Corporation (EIEC) which uses private architects’ practices, though not as designers. Standard sets of plans and specifications, ‘proven as the most economical form of construction’ are handed to these architects to adapt to each site. Although these jobs are concentrated in the inner city where site preparation is complicated, architects can take little pride in the fact that they have designed every- thing below the ground floor slab! They then supervise construction, the whole job being on a reduced fee basis. Architects who work in this situation had many criticisms, but they were not sure whether they had the expertise, let alone the power, to participate in this field. Advance Factory Units are a direct transplant of EIEC’s forty years’ experience of spec- ulative building on areen-field sites. Their use on vacant, ‘problem’, inner-city land is not necessarily right. There are plenty of empty warehouses and industrial buildings around Liverpool’s dockland which could be converted, but in fact are now being demolished to feed the dwindling supply of vacant ‘problem’ sites! To convert existing buildings would mean a greater amount of architectural work and less waste, butwould meet resistance from financiers, developers and builders who claim that conversion work would not ‘sustain their present capacity in its existing form’. Part of the reason for the Advance Factory Programme, in addition to alleviating inner city construction un- employment is that the capacity of the construction industry should be kept up so that it will be able to cope with the next economic boom (and so more suburban factories again) — when itcomes. Waiting for the next boom, the present monetary halt in the traditional course of city expansion seems to be all that can be coped with. This, linked to the idea of in- jecting new life into the centres — ‘the old dying hearts of our civilisation’. Promotion of small manufacturers is supposed to seed new firms which will grow large, or feed new ideas to the large and perhaps be the basis for a new boom. The revival of the inner city then seems almost an attempt to re-run economic expansion in the way it worked from the nineteenth-century city to the emergence of the now-flagging twentieth-century metropolis and giant industries. But ...of the 44 Advance Factories developed by the local authority and now in use, the majority have attracted service rather than manu- facturing industries; and the service sector both ultimately depends on manufacturing, and isat present seen to be expanding only very temporarily. tstteronys urepras tomerren’s (NN cit Prodzms Architects were in the forefront of the ‘SNAP’ project which foreran the co-ops and siiowed how communities could have better housing without being smashed up. Now, a few years on, some have found themselves to have been turned into a ‘housing machine’, which although keeping streets intact is as isolated as ever from the other fun- damental problems, such as employment, which compound these as crisis areas. Architects working on Advance Factories could see the obvious inconsistency in using them. To replace industries that had been the life-blood of the nineteenth-century city with the suburban factory type is illogical. The liklihood that they employ labour from the surrounding community, which had been built for the old industries, is slim — the grant system discriminates against local firms using the units and in favour of attracting outsiders, and Liverpool! is more oriented to the one big employer, the docks, than to lots of small firms. Is it desirable for people to commute to work on One militant group of tenants has recently formed a co-op and successfully cam- painged for new houses on a vacant site: it remains to be seen whether this will provide an opportunity for a better architect-client relationship. ‘Build for Sale’, low-density, suburban-type schemes are designed by building firms as standard consumer models perfected over a very long period of time with perhaps some slight variations to suit this year’s or next yer’s fashion. This puts the user in the same position as when buying a Car or choosing soap powder from the supermarket shelf — it's all right if you can afford or your requirements ‘fit’ into the standard pattern, but you can never know whether you are getting what you want or what you are being made to want. The architect's traditional consultation with the client is out of the question. In fact the whole process from market research, design, local authority consent, contract planning to advertising is being computerised by some of the biggest firms — and more jobs are going down thedrain!. See below for private practice and local authority work in housing. central sites — a complete reversal of the original idea of moving industry to the suburbs? This is true also for goods transport: the accessibility of central sites compares unfavourably with the outskirts near the motorways. Does this mean that inner area industry will be the excuse for bringing back the idea of motorways in the old city? The scale of vandalism entails the defence of the ‘community’ factory, resulting in high fences. The need for lots of open space for storage and transport is also inapprop- riate to the close-knit character of the inner city. Architects could contribute to these problems by showing what sort of physical solutions are possible. The profession, however, is appealing for architectural leadership in creating small enterprises housed in old buildings. One or two such projects may get off the ground, but the local authority is producing more than 20 units a year. Even if 40 small firms a year are born, creating, optimistically, 400 jobs, they are not going to go far in a Merseyside which announced over 8,500 redundancies in major industries in the first three months of this year and has unemployment in some inner areas running as high as 32%. No, what is needed is for architects to forget their entrepreneurial role (which isn’t going to create much impact anyway), and concentrate on simply using their skill as designers to create solutions which make it possible for the ideas of exist- ing local people and groups to be realised. A deeper dimension to the problem may be seen in that twelve giant firms account for 50% of employment. Only one of these is both locally-rooted and powerful enough to be considered internationally secure. The rest are either subsidiaries of national or foreign-based conglomerates which bear no allegiance to the area, or relatively out-worn local firms starved of the capital needed to re-equip. The furore over encouraging small firms and re-kindling the spirit of the free market and private entreprise can be seen as a smokescreen which provides optimism and diverts attention from the problems which the centralisation of big industrial capital is now posing. ‘Official Architects’ in the council's architects department control the building work of council committees. In the fifties and sixties the department was being built up on a big programme of work, some of it being put out to private practice. Although part of the state, these architects stand out for parity in status with private practices in the profession: the profession, in turn, has often been criticised for regarding its ‘official’ members as second rate. In Liverpool, the council architect's staff committee se. is to be dominated by people who are politically conservative and paradoxically, broadly opposed to an extension of state activity! With a run-down in council housing development and the growth of ‘Build for Sale’, for example, a proposal that the design and marketing functions of this new type of housing should be kept in the department never got through in spite of the fact that it was strongly backed by NALGO. Support from within the department was stalled. This was partly due to confusion created when members of the Association of Official Architects (the officer-architects’ union recognised by RIBA) warned of the danger of loss of professional status if they became too strongly identified with NALGO. The fact that surveyors constitute a strong element of the same staff committee compounds the problem: they have less to lose. Firstly, for example, the housing im- provement work that has been coming to the department has been done by surveyors who have lower fee scales. This is justified by the fact that overheads on an office built Up on massive housing developrrents are too high to allow a full architectural service. Active thinking on design, architects jobs and quality of service to tenants which could ultimately lead to reduced costs — al miss out. A second example is that surveyors have welcomed the council's share of the Advance Factory.programme, and indeed all types of industrial building on local authority sites in that the preparatory surveys and ground works fall fully within their speciality. But again, the opportunity for the type of deeper analysis of designs suitable to the locality (as outlined under ‘industrial building’ above) is lost. Employment in the architects department is down 30-40% on two years ago. Mech- anical and electrical service engineers working in the department hardly exist now, and work is going out to private consultants. The remaining supervision work on the council’s housing programme is running out. Designs still being prepared are axed as cleared sites go to ‘Build for Sale’. Educational work is at rock bottom. A programme of building for the police which has kept work levels up since 1970 is tailing off. The recently announced Maritime Museum project on the docks has gone out to competition with the council's department just on the list. Meanwhile there is no defence of the architects’ real potential, and attempts to make their services directly available to the community would be blocked for not going through proper channels. . Qrtta atatnat oe eleect C. THE LOCAL AUTHORITY ARCHITECTS’ DEPARTMENT D. PRIVATE PRACTICE. Architecture is effectively controlled by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which constitutes the majority on the Architects Registration Council UK (ARCUK). An insight into the nature of RIBA can be had from a look at the people it has gathered for its annual conference, held in Liverpool in July 1978, titled ‘Living in Cities’ and calling for a ‘general commitment to the ideas of community architecture’ Firstly, a lot of members are excluded by the cost — £65 for three and a half days Fifty buraries are offered to help counteract this to people who can offer a few ‘well- chosen words’ on why they should go, but this is on the level of a competition on the back of a Cornflakes packet. So much for architectural communities — the same would apply to much of the rest of the city’s community. Looking at what was covered by the conference speakers it can be seen that the whole spectrum of a city politics is covered — the church, industry, land, the local and county authorities, central government, the USA, all on the first morning. The second day covers the inner city partnership programme (ICPP), and housing by a local councillor, local officer, housing associations and co-ops, private developer and finally, a county officer. A closer look confirms that the conference is an annual bandwaggon, a showpiece, revealing that RIBA is unable to make a serious attempt to assist with the city’s and architects’ problems. At the centre of the public image of architectural work is the private practice, similar to the medical or legal practice. There are lots of these practices in Liverpool. Their local club is the Liverpool Architectural Society (LAS) and they are represented in the North West Regional Council of the RIBA. The five or six largest firms appear to dom- inate the LAS, but below these there are twenty or more firms with two or more part- nersm and a whole host of further smaller firms. As in all small enterprises there is an intimacy about these latter which is a relief from the big hierarchies, although those who work in them are dependent on the partners’ relationship with clients and have to help cultivate the right social climate in the firm, whoever the client may be. 2. WHO CONTROLS US, WHO REPRESENTS US? While the larger and better established firms get what little number of jobs do come to them through the organisation of the profession, the smaller and medium-sized local firm is in fact extremely vulnerable and dependent on what clients it can attract. Desian skill is very much within this context. In one discussion in our group, for example, the job of working for a private housing developer was described as: to aim at a certain market: must have Georgian windows; areas to be designed strictly dictated and un- related to government minimum standards; no direct contact with house buyers; no garages; no ‘little extras’ in houses; no storage etc Another type of local practice as represented was based on ‘community’ and housing association work. In this case lack of finacial rewards is, at least initially, replaced by the satisfaction of working with, and the support of,the local community. These arch: itects were playing a part in community development. Architects have often been prime movers in the declaration of GIAs, HAAs or community schemes which have later been backed or taken over by the state. The resulting organisations such as the co-ops have then farmed a certain amount of work back to private practices. In this way, schemes get the more specifically ‘architectural’ attention which isabsent ‘in-house’, and seems to be only attainable within the old professional set-up The co-op which has fought successfully for its own new housing (mentioned above), for example, looked at inter- nationally-famous housing architects such as Darbourne and Darke before deciding ona local practice. Existing housing associations or co-op ‘in house’ architects were not con- sidered The Anglican Bishop begins by introducing the ‘social climate’ of Liverpool — thereby instating the the profession firmly outside the embarrassment of its position in worldy politics? The result is often politcal naiveté. Next, the object of the architect's work, the city fabric, is stated in a primarily visual and aesthetic way. The visual aspect may be an important part of an architect's work, but the primacy of the ‘aesthetic’ blinds many employed architects both in their education and later in practice, to their manipulation by developers, builders and others whose motives can be less easily acceptable. Will the speaker in this case, Theo Crosby, repeat his former mistakes? His praise of Cumbernauld New Town in 1962 points to his ‘visual blindness’: “Nearby (the municipal centre) on the north edge of the hill will be a group of tower blocks. From the hill there will be spectacular views in all directions, and this centre, with its wide terraces and broad flights of steps, could be the most exciting big new thing in Britain.”’ Fifteen years later, a Sunday Times popular splash against architects led pub- lic opinion that the centre was, in fact, “expensive, out of character, impractically sited on a windy hill. . wives were left to trudge the endless walkways and ramps to a city centre that, isolated from the passing pedistrian, couldn’t fail to be dull.” Next, John Worthington introduces “‘the private initiative”, dealing with industry in terms of “creating work through small entreprises, self-help”. This is coupled with David Palmer, a Chartered Surveyor, appealing to financiers to help with non-profit- making development of ‘difficult’ inner city sites. Land, finance and industry which are at the base of Liverpool's problems are skirted around. The conference official stimulus paper, “Living in Cities ” sees the problem as one of “a graduated balance between ‘the little things and the big things’ ...in a free market economy.” Good sites, roads, well-housed labour and a local authority with an empathy towards private enterprise are all that is needed, and “there is no reason why these things should not be provided” !To reduce such closures as that of Triumph at Speke or any other of Liverpool's recent disasters to this is naive. Furthermore, Palmer's appeal to goodwill from financiers (usually mostly insurance and pension funds) on land development can be little more than a cosmetic measure when they generally have to underwrite high land values to maintain high profit rates so that such things as‘our' pension funds keep pace with inflation. Does the professional practice have a part to play in the community? Some combine community action and involvement with getting their bread and butter from such design work as results from this activity Professional ‘independence’ may have some edge in communities over agencies hampered by local or national state departmentalism Attempts by local groups to organise their own lives always cross departmental and disciplinary lines, and in so doing often expose some of the real conflicting interests which the local authority sustains. The former Community Development Projects, backed by the state, did this and where disbanded when they exposed local interests of ‘big capitals’. Opposition to recent attempts by Liverpool community groups, under the umbrella of the LCVS, to gain a say in the DoE’s partnership scheme is a more recent example. Some architects have realised the need for community organisation, but in returning to the ‘bread and butter’ aichitectural practice for community groups, such design work as comes their way can only represent Community control within the confines of a design process as defined by the ethics and codes of professional practice There is a dilemma between private practice (architectural private enterprise) and community work. The ethic of independence combined with service in itself conflicts with the iater-disciplinary involvement needed in effective community control. This dilemma is also present in other small practices trying to maintain professional integrity in the face of increasingly desperate and competitive commercial and other clients. At the same time, Monopolies Commission investigation of the fee-scale, the rising cost of insurance, and the increasingly precarious legitimacy of the architectural profession loom large as factors in the insecurity of these firms OD. PRIVATE PRACTICE. While the larger and better established firms get what little number of jobs do come to them through the organisation of the profession, the smaller and medium-sized local firm is in fact extremely vulnerable and dependent on what clients it can attract. Design skill is very much within this context. In one discussion in our group, for example, the job of working for a private housing developer was described as: to aim at a certain market; must have Georgian windows; areas to be designed strictly dictated and un- related to government minimum standards; no direct contact with house buyers; no garages; no ‘little extras’ in houses; no storage etc Architecture is effectively controlled by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which constitutes the majority on the Architects Registration Council UK {ARCUK). An insight into the nature of RIBA can be had from a look at the people it has gathered for its annual conference, held in Liverpool in July 1978, titled ‘Living in Cities’ and calling for a ‘general commitment to the ideas of community architecture’ Firstly, a lot of members are excluded by the cost — £65 for three and a half days Fifty buraries are offered to help counteract this to people who can offer a few ‘well: chosen words’ on why they should go, but this is on the level of a competition on the back of a Cornflakes packet. So much for architectural communities — the same would apply to much of the rest of the city’s community. Looking at what was covered by the conference speakers it can be seen that the whole spectrum ofa city politics is covered — the church, industry, land, the local and county authorities, central government, the USA, all on the first morning. The second day covers the inner city partnership programme (ICPP), and housing by a local councillor, local officer, housing associations and co-ops, private developer and finally, a county officer. A closer look confirms that the conference is an annual bandwagqqon, a showpiece, revealing that RIBA is unable to make a serious attempt to ass'st with the city’s and architects’ problems. The Anglican Bishop begins by introducing the ‘social climate’ of Liverpool! — thereby instating the the profession firmly outside the embarrassment of its position in worldy politics? The result is often politcal naiveté. Next, the object of the architect's work, the city fabric, is stated in a primarily visual and aesthetic way. The visual aspect may be an important part of an architect’s work, but the primacy of the ‘aesthetic’ blinds many employed architects both in their education and later in practice, to their manipulation by developers, builders and others whose motives can be less easily acceptable. Will the speaker in this case, Theo Crosby, repeat his former mistakes? His praise of Cumbernauld New Town in 1962 points to his ‘visual blindness’: “Nearby (the municipal centre) on the north edge of the hill will be a group of tower blocks. From the hill there will be spectacular views in all directions, and this centre, with its wide terraces and broad flights of steps, could be the most exciting big new thing in Britain.” Fifteen years later, a Sunday Times popular splash against architects led pub- lic opinion that the centre was, in fact, “expensive, out of character, impractically sited ona windy hill... wives were left to trudge the endless walkways and ramps to a city centre that, isolated from the passing pedistrian, couldn't fail to be dull.” Does the professional practice have a part to play in the community? Some combine community action and involvement with getting their bread and butter from such design work as results from this activity Professional ‘independence’ may have some edge in communities over agencies hampered by local or national state departmentalism Attempts by local groups to organise their own lives always cross departmental and disciplinary lines, and in so doing often expose some of the real conflicting interests which the local authority sustains. The former Community Development Projects, backed by the state, did this and where disbanded when they exposed local interests of ‘big capitals Opposition to recent attempts by Liverpool community groups, under the umbrella of the LCVS, to gaina say in the DoE’s partnership scheme is a more recent example. Some architects have realised the need for community organisation, but in returning to the ‘bread and butter’ a:chitectural practice for community groups, such design work as comes their way can only represent community control within the confines of a design process as defined by the ethics and codes of professional practice There is a dilemma between private practice (architectural private enterprise) and community work. The ethic of independence combined with service in itself conflicts with the inter-disciplinary involvement needed in effective community control. This dilemma is also present in other small practices trying to maintain professional integrity in the face of increasingly desperate and competitive commercial and other clients. At the same time, Monopolies Commission investigation of the fee-scale, the rising cost of nsurance, and the increasingly precarious legitimacy of the architectural profession loom large as factors in the insecurity of these firms 2. WHO CONTROLS US, WHO REPRESENTS US? At the centre of the public image of architectural work is the private practice, similar to the medical or legal practice. There are lots of these practices in Liverpool. Their local club is the Liverpool Architectural Society (LAS) and they are represented in the North West Regional Council of the RIBA. The five or six largest firms appear to dom- inate the LAS, but below these there are twenty or more firms with two or more part- nersm and a whole host of further smaller firms. As in all small enterprises there is an intimacy about these latter which is a relief from the big hierarchies, although those who work in them are dependent on the partners’ relationship with clients and have to help cultivate the right social climate in the firm, whoever the client may be. Next, John Worthington introduces ‘‘the private initiative”, dealing with industry in terms of “creating work through small entreprises, self-help”. This is coupled with David Palmer, a Chartered Surveyor, appealing to financiers to help with non-profit- making development of ‘difficult’ inner city sites. Land, finance and industry which are at the base of Liverpool's problems are skirted around. The conference official stimulus paper, “Living in Cities ” sees the problem as one of “a graduated balance between ‘the little things and the big things’ ... ina free market economy.” Good sites, roads, well-housed labour and a local authority with an empathy towards private enterprise arealthatisneeded,and“thereisnoreasonwhythesethingsshouldnot be provided” !To reduce such closures as that of Triumph at Speke or any other of Liverpool's recent disasters to this is naive. Furthermore, Palmer's appeal to goodwill from financiers (usually mostly insurance and pension funds) on land development can be little more than a cosmetic measure when they generally have to underwrite high land values to maintain high profit rates so that such thingsas‘our pension funds keep pace with inflation. Another type of local practice as represented was based on ‘community’ and housing association work. In this case lack of finacial rewards is, at least initially, replaced by the satisfaction of working with, and the support of,the local community. These arch- itects were playing a part in community development. Architects have often been prime movers in the declaration of GIAs, HAAs or community schemes which have later been backed or taken over by the state. The resulting organisations such as the co-ops have then farmed a certain amount of work back to private practices. In this way, schemes get the more specifically ‘architectural’ attention which is absent ‘in-house’, and seems to be only attainable within the old professional set-up. The co-op which has fought successfully for its own new housing (mentioned above), for example, looked at inter- nationally-famous housing architects such as Darbourne and Darke before deciding ona local practice. Existing housing associations or co-op ‘in house’ architects were not con sidered Where do architects stand? Strangely, local architects may gain from this uncertainty, in that in the rush to beat deadlines forproposals for applications, d ments can only agree to resurrect their old building programmes rather than Grand the money on re-organising a joint attack. This is, however, architecture by default; mor ‘ so when the DoE itself appears to be laying the blame, perhaps rightly, for the fousin disasters of the last twenty years on the shoulders of architects. But as our owndis : cussions have shown, to cut design skills out of housing altogether (viz. run-down of local authorities and fee -cutting in housinig associaitions) may be to throw the b. with the bath water. ; eo Further speakers on housing are unlikely to give much help to the situation of arch- itects as we find them: Allan Roberts of Manchester is likely to give short shrift to architects for their performance with system builders in the public housing programme. Liverpool's new Liberal housing chairman has recently “slammed the ‘hare- brained architects and clever-dick planners’ for producing ‘zany and often bizarre- looking’ council housing estates in the past. ‘Good homes are not created by last year’s architectural competition winner’.” Finally, Tom Barron expounds ‘Build for Sale’ — the architectural component of which has already been mentioned: is the conference onOFF IDO |BRASOF RL -— : es pnyEX HowAdeyourAovAME\—~ — FACTORY Jogs gens? / NS évs I} organiser crazy when he asks us to desecrate our own jobs by asking ‘what isstopping developersbuildingmorehousesforsale?’ +f After skirting round industry and land, J.P. Mcllroy represents, under ‘the public initiative’ just how determined a stand a local authority can take in ‘empathising with private enterprise’. Formerly chief planning officer of Labour -controlled Bootle, now chief executive of Tory-controlled Sefton, created out of Bootle and Southport after re-organisation, he has been known as a strong officer, perhaps above local politics. The effect of attracting private enterprise on the local community in Bootle, however. is questionable. A vast area of working class housing was removed, for example, to make way for the Stanley office development. Although this was justified as creating jobs for Bootle, the offices pull in workers from all over Merseyside, and certainly don’t discriminate in favour of local people with a background in manufacturing and port employment. Similarly, in conjunction with Ravenseft, Bootle wasprovided under Mcllroy with the New Strand shopping centre which gaveoutlets for major shopping chains while local shopkeepers went to the wall after promises of relocation made in return for passive acceptance of the necessary CPOs, fizzled out. To sum up, the profession founds us on the church and an aesthetic basis which blinds us in our compliance with the forces which control us. We may be gingered into another year of drudgery by a vision of small enterprise workshops and land develop- ment which will never get to the real problems. We have a local authority in which we are squeezed out between ‘attracting big business’ (using outside architects) and an in- ability to relate to the local community. And we are being by-passed in housing, both in the public and private sectors. We need a new political basis for organising ourselves. The RIBA continues to ‘represent’ us by drawing its alliances with the management of a political establishment which can still, in fact, do nothing but run the old city and its communities down The RIBA tries to excuse itself for doing this, and for letting a lot of its members go down, by trying to create an atmosphere of ‘regenerating the old city’ and ‘community architecture’ while our jobs disappear. The RIBA is rightly associated with the architects responsible for the disasters of the last 20 years, but bankrupt in terms of the representation of architects as they now stand. Thesearebuttwoexamplesofsomethingwhichhasbeenparallelledintheema ingofLiverpool.WhiletheimageofthewelfarestatehadbeenthatofSi e worstaspectsofwhollyfreeenterprise,peoplearerealisinghowthelocal Lea has complied in the rape of local communities; wholesale Gestruction ae reco! was justified as attracting industries — but these are now leaving town The confusion of the architects’ fall between private enterprise ange Sa ne continues in the next morning's discussion of the ICPP. Des Nevonee eRe ebfafsecdtwoFheNnethheTLrieyaesurpyanoeteherSEiOe raiealSOeusyaadthceireseeparate rs. The ICPP is thus unable to address itselfproperly tot e o saatlackinginthenecessaryeconomicteethtocreateaJohnat oe ral roblems. In Liverpool, local political instability (the former LIE nthe : hhasbeenreplacedbyaLib/ConpactwhenLabourgainedama}Can See clection’l further undermines because departmental policies are pitcne 9) each other for reasons of short-run political expediency. UNIVERSITY OF RIALTO Community Centre. eZmi ; by Commumty Architect SNAP PROJECT AREA New-buila Co-operative BENE Eos SSOP SMI EOGLIA Pies ies Se So/ : r SNAP improvement SHELTER’S original base KINGSLEY ROAD PRINCES AVENUE RATHBONE JOINERY WORKSHOP ADMIRAL STREET designed Plz Stetion > ~E " ROAD "DISTRICT CENTRE architect - STEBLE STREET BATHS CORN and YATES STREET HOUSINGaacCO-Ol’ Housing Co-op Rehab ESSEX STREET POLICE STATION ses ? S new uses for oldbuildings DS i> } MK “Zo< £ yy , es yeSis sem :a I ATon : . Wath Sa SS BRMeare Bieaol re ge BY NOE Ge he PH CBE R: 57 Peart e Sce43 35 PACK EDN ES au SERusfori f ‘<}|if cel}aed ;- pane ; : eS 30/2 ATi) y ae pal Eed| A bHee-}5;—f2erat| W f ) o2 A S ro°))I Otho LIVERPOOL ThWe Ae,ye *raine) , ie oO me BARA eS PARLIAMENT STREET Planning Blight" FAULKNERSQUARE Sate V—"o*m@BOEBEY BSSOY yoa cmtsy SQUARE Fehabilitation and Conversion eCOMeMUNITY SOG 3 rea race | CENTRE UPPER STANHOPE STREEY Commumity centre ED cee GRANBY STREET SHOPPING improvement Project MERLIN STREET First Urban Aid Community cenére WELLER STRRETS HOUSING CO-OP “TOWN TRAIL” OUR — examples of professional architecture in the community and the alternatives. be |shopping :Social secunty, 3. ARCHITECTS IN LIVERPOOL A look at the origins and post-war development of Liverpool will show the declining local architectural involvement in the changing power base of the city. It may also help to explain something of the situation we are in now, and point the way for a reformulated local organisation of architects which can play a stronger and more realistic role in what the planners who took part in one of our discussions characterised as in effect a policy of a “managed decline’ — which is something no-one knows how to handle. The RIBA conference stimulus question, ‘Should architects commit themselves to the entrepreneurial-catalyst role as professionsal leaders; is this a vested interest in disquise; if so does it matter?’ is entirely inappropriate to the position of local archi- tects and the demise of the inner city. In ignoring the rea/ industrial and economic base of the city it masks the true basis of a profession which is still a useful form of organ- isation to its largest and still successful national and international firms which are in alliance with big capital. Its purpose may be seen to encourage the continuance of an entrepreneurial attitude in its out-dated 19th century form among the mass of mem: bers led by the profession. This leaves local architects powerless to organise against the erosion of their position by an increasingly powerful central and local state working with ‘outside’ industrialists and developers who have the area in a stranglehold. Local practices still depend on ‘professional independence’ for their position, but are undefended against fee-cutting and loss of work to nationals. Local authority work is decreasing, while central state agencies such as the PSA increase their workload. Meanwhile, successful national and international practices, well capitalised and estab- lished at a higher turnover on lower fees, draw further into ‘unethical’ package dealing and speculative enterprise. There is little on the horizon to give Liverpool! hope that it has anything to gain from ‘international expansion’: yet the idea of a non-growth economy, participation in the management of decline, is as unpalatable to the city’s managers as it is to the local architects’ society. The latter seem content to cut each other's throats and sell out to outside interests (for example, the Liverpool Architect- ure Society’s passive acceptance of the demolition of the Lyceum, its own birthplace and part of ‘our architectural heritage’) in order that those in control will get what crumbs do come their way. In the 1930s, Liverpool's architects had an international reputation for what they were doing under the patronage of the port and related industries for the city itself. In a city which had been built up by its industrial bourgeoisie comparatively ‘overnight’, there had been a strong tradition of philanthropy followed by a model municipal government. The local authority were early in their patronage of architecture. Under Sir Lancelot Keay, the council housing developments of the 1930s attained a respectable architectural clothing which was coherent with the style of the city’s other great buildings, Both shared, for example, the influence of Dudok and the Dutch School School. Working class housing attained the image of equality with the city’s industrial base. But by the 1930s, the old industries were already in decline, and new ones seen to be needed. Keay’s housing culminated in the model community at Speke which was integrated with new factory building for modern industry. Liverpool was, then, an ideal setting for the 1948 RIBA conference to catch the utopian mood of the immediate post-war era. Keay, now the first public officer president of the RIBA sat comfortably next to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of the cathedral and at the pinnacle of private practice. Architects were entertained to tea at the home of the major industrialist Lord Leverhulme whose family was renowned for philanthropy (Port Sunlight) and patron- age of the arts. The RIBA banner was instated in the new cathedral by the Archbishop of York, and the LAS, celebrating its centenary, was acclaimed for its position as a foremost regional society in the RIBA. rc Aé ' i ' 4 J36 e < 2 m= 8 ' > - = PO} 2UBA OYA SOV3A90 JHL VYuViLiyY | aetndodun uv ojur , ueeg aaey fee 33S VW¥GUYA ATHO 4Se tl 4 vyONY q StLIN3W OL LON “S3HDNH * Say euNq ywouN 942 JO, $2503 Tyosu <q *‘kerted hidw3 341 J¥dS dQHS LN¥I¥A 30 "609, 943 UT 4379 UT perderseauy TTeN@ITUR 03 @2UepUCdweZI0> ye03024 = Ot Seetyeratza i] 1OOd:JUe a sOUTPTOH IWS. t ss they 3729939 ¥ 3SNNKH 91 HOAONG @ ‘L3N193Hd Se OL a fe27j730 Wrepow sbtse02d 27 UT AON “Pp @sou 37 340m eeu @usy2e Ayes JO G212e4IHOW Guy3ueyIUe sua Aq Wate BYR J0J /OHS SSI13ISN 3HON NIAZ P2TINZAIq 2UealoTaAVpar 943 eD4 Tw9p 943 P PIN wpyob sNidens DNIMOG Visa “Sdcl¥ JH1 a1 NHorF °32S 39 49013 gunsg Aig joodieAry SS3713SN3S SIHL MONS SUDLIYNANODD OVIGIING TATT dN AN VAN fone gloss sa3HTANIAR PIO We = 2903804207 suoiyin 133415 J 49 3c SLNTA 311 *aeAys aya 228A ITUA POTPPTS pue uno; 4302) @1OUA Oa 2eatuore ‘o"d ‘AW 1SHL Lhso1e *(OP TH puw 10179495 I! u-kq-A1E @LON SJOdo|ereq OU If "3 QUOF 9say Aled *uoyTes>ep q ple peuu02, © 3¥ 26U2 290s O42 JO SpiwY 637 SOUCTA SY Cd Ut pegrsosep 419307 © PEND hing w#yNb *3 ‘wnesk] oyy Uywied pInon "qn st#O4UTPT ING peretr © epead ysyTousp oF H3UesUOD UO BayetT eay3 OU Sunnok'q YT :5::: WarBOGTwasnotrevival|CaaSTRERIEE;GERdtRhemovement ofinternaet-s tonal industries to Merseyside encouraged by state regional policy. While planned net towns were the basis of peripheral expansion, the old city retained its atmosphere ca dereliction inherited from the war, and still remaining after a lack of state control habitual to a continuing conservative local authority (planning committee chairmen of the time are heard to be accused of using development control to bolster up a clique of local practices). Liverpool's first Labour council only came in 1955. : The post-war generation of architects were less concerned with making buildings which were locally acclaimed than establishing their international reputations. It was the /nternationa! Style. This ran true to the disestablishment of focal capital and the need to ally with outside, rather than local interests to be successful. By the early 1960s Liverpool had a combination of a stronger Labour leader wanting a planned revitalisation of the city, the standard approach by a developer (Ravenseft again) to round up an unprecedented parcel of central land for a shopping precinct (St. John’s), proposals for motorway development round the city centre, and the emergence of arch- itect-plans for city development. Holford, an ex- Liverpool architecture student, was a professor in Liverpool at the time. He had been director of the war-time state Planning and Resources Agency, and strongly recommended another of the internationalist and utopian socialist post-war generation, Shankland to prepare a plan. (The fact that and Shankland’s practice was designing private hotels in Jamaica at the time — ‘breaMdodern It is important to note that the butter work?’ — didn’t appear contradictory). reform and Style, originated ina mood of left-wing social Movement, the International the method of a utopian harmony between a working class and capital: it was to cfaoprimtal in the post- restructuring the built environment alongside the restructuring of war era. establishment was on the way out. Shankland Pe Liverpool's older architectural road be demolishe 1965 posed that nearly all buildings within the proposed inner ringoutof date : merit’ for the reason that they were ‘unlessofarchitectural ofhighbuilding,‘toconte | of building capital). There was a policy repor Y we (Restructuring skyline’. Ata timewhen the Buena thetraditionofthewaterfront pedestrian/tra alae inTowns’wasinvogue,therewastobeacompletetopavethewayoer ee walkways. Hisproposals were oe asystem of high-level but since (het TN based Se fortheyoungergenerationoflocalarchitects, », ee are and the new In lustries, brought work to go round, 2 large proportion velopers, such as Ravenseft, was aval a andcentralise fact building the most tightly-controlled isa ediHeOAe oreo firmsandsystemsdevelopers The impetus of building aae The position of architects working in planning at the time has been aptly summar ised: “We were not planners and we had no concept of urban change. Our naive enthusiasm and pre-occupation with built architectural form must have been a headache for the inner city residents we met. We talked about how the areas were going to be well designed in the future; Hey talked about the lack of jobs and the bloody-mindedness of Town Hall officials. We were miles apart and we could not even see it.” The emerging economic crisis brought home the idiocy of reconstruction, and an increasingly devastated commmunity strengthened its opposition. Under Amos the policy changed from what could be conceived to what could be afforded. Develop- ment plans were limited to areas which were likely to see significant change in the short term. Rehab, community projects and Urban Aid programmes replaced recon struction. SNAP took place in 1969. More recent planning policy in an atmosphere of even greater uncertainty is to monitor social and economic trends in order to present coherent policy options as clearly as possible. Architect-planners could not be further ‘our’ BEFORE (right) amd AFTER (below) in the Tntenm Planning Policy Statement under Borin practices of the time. well-known. 7 ement of a separate planning department hee1haTiandarchitects’independentcontrolover Whe e satl A lot of the new planning staff were still architects by training, but (Rain, washing and football eee no ntrolofthecity’sgrowthandarchitecturalleadershipofitsimplement on ret Spada programme became divorced: this further weakened thepotential stronlipiasrpaeinthebuildingofthecity.BorextendedShanklandsmethods sakete LS(1963),stillinwhatnowseemsthestaggeringlybanalarchitect-plan o ie Sealing for‘more data. The NBA's report on the sie housing Tae ee arate j _taking into account the outlined First prope coat Transportation StudY 11969) perfected the proposed TheMere temonthebasisofnearuniversalcar-ownership.These,andother a mreoptoortrsway a ithin the era in which statistics were used blindly to justify reconstructions : In a context of unlimited work, the passing of local firms’ contro! was probably un- bute Liverpool sou has 2 fist divinon beans p) f eee andCrgeniseronof/tse/fisoutofKeywithwhatalotofarch- 4.WHERE ARE WE ACTION. ? NOW? ASPECTS OF ORGANISATION AND ACTION aie ; . Theexample of Liverpool's history indicates radical State aénd private capital. 7A form of orgganainsiastiaotnion isneeded whicChHIETiGscapablseeeofr standing how the forms of control which architects face have chanel Th eine fa Certain sections of both the state and private capital have grown to the point whe professional organisation’, ethics and ideas no longer hold sway over an increasing! i specific and technically-defined logic of big capital’s and giant Geganleattonsv grote Working for these, architects, along with many other skills including management need to defend themselves (and increasingly do) on union lines. But membership of even white collar unions is seen to contradict the ‘profession’ and ‘being an architect’, although many of these unions are based on defence of skills. The private-independent streak and professional pride run deep, even when architects are badly paid down- trodden and overtaken by better-organised skills. : ive? collective or co-operative . Ol raig reporting in the Liverpool Echo, May 1978 liverinseciets The Property Boom’, London: Pan 1968 , propcsats forSe As, however, ‘Local Government becomesgo Part of the way to so’ vingJthe pr ationoflocalauthority willonly eracs architects eltheyie 7;InterimPlanningPolicyState’ LiverpoolCityPlannin ‘C:ityit ii’ ' feySar BigBusiness oe ' uchnick,‘UrbanRenewalinLiverpool’,Occ.Pap.onSoc.Admin.NoS3,COT] a. ’ architecturewhentheyare Seon: i - See REFERENCES: Liverpool lDistricttLabour Part y, Housing Poliicy Statement, 1978 pene VEISOUCe Demantiing Merseyside: the collapse of Regional Policy’, New Statesman, 21.4.78 . lve, ‘Large Firms on Merseyside’, i |Poly, 1978 RIESMembershipList,1977"ert a Pt : Ceemy.CumbernauldNewTown’,ArchitectsYearBook10,1962 Conner jameson, ‘British Architecture: 30 Wasted Years’, Sunday Times 6.2.77 Tae ‘onaghy, ‘Inner Cities: Government Response’, RIBAJ July 1978 . ieat merenos‘BritishInnerCityPlanning:apersonalview’,Architect’sYearBook1974 eeewLitiverpoolCityCaeDnetpraertPmlean’t,,1965” ae ofcommuniOtFyotherwiseunrelatedtogia inLiverpooln’,eunpub.d=raft,LiverpoolUniversitiyoe forms practices of Post-War Planning aswioilfotchoemrmercial Le eatsmn Newoncnsummary inArchitecturean ey andeconomic baseofcities. tfrag¢mented ,butm e q NeusareasraeaingProfessions.’NAM1977 rch. Movt. (continued) ‘Publi i StatedepartmentsDeocallySHON“ fewrch.Movt.‘WorkingforWhat?TheCaseforTradeUnionOrganisation somewha' manageme! informerlyandmergedunderacorporate i X 197; SAGManifestoinAJ,3.5.78peasLene a centralised ise. rfunectioneee withprivateenterpris Jolhohn Bennington, ’‘Local Government Becomes Big Business’, COP 1976 which enables the state to keep pace aRaaeea Proposals arising from NAM’s recent conference on 2 Public Design Service (PDS) have pointed out how an architectural ideology founded primarily on private practice has given even local authority building programmes the image of private enterprise specifically from major new ideas coming from farming out projects to private practice and competitions. At the same time as bringing the local authorities into line with private enterprise In this way, architects have been becoming involved in specific corruption scandals in handling contracts with private building firms. Finally, now, local authority architects are again caught between private enterprise and the state, torn between their profession and unionisation as their departments are dismantled. These two articles are written partly from discussions held in the first half of this year by people interested in forming a non-professional group of building designers . Now a clearer picture has emerged, a group will be formed in the autumn to continue analysis, formulate action on certain issues, and take on projects. If you are working in architecture or building design, want to know more about architectural organisation and practice, doing or needing projects which involve a collective way of working etc., contact: ‘Designers Meeting’, c/o School of Architecture, University, Liverpool. A stronger, more democratic basis for planned control over the city’s development is needed and some planners in local authorities are moving In the direction of creating a basis for this. Local architects, having barely got over the passing of control from the city architects department and local practice, and then the architect-planner and nat- ional practice, must be now prepared to think in terms ofparticipating in decisions on the city’s development, not as leaders, but from a more realistic definition of their skills. (At least, then, the dangers of repetition of the blame for the tower blocks and the concrete jungle of the sixties could not be repeated). Private practice in a society founded on the free market and private enterprise !s still the basis of the Royal Institute of British Architects. As such they may effectively represent the interests of the management of a few large offices which act as consultants or leaders on the reorganisation of state or provate projects. The ethics and requirements of practice of these are increasingly far from those of employed architects and even medium and smaller private practices. By remaining under their domination, the majority of architects cannot help themselves. One current defence of professionals is that by the Salaried Architects Group inthe RIBA. This is likely to continue the tradition of a succession of ineffective union-type challenges within the RIBA unless it can completely expose the latter’s foundation on private enterprise and recognise that their defence of the ‘profession’ is tantamount to 4 defence of craft skill. The New Architecture Movement on the other hand, ha opened up the possibility of unionisation outside the profession through the AUEW white collar section, TASS — there are no TASS architect members in the North West yet. Ther a re a hanful of architects in the building industry’s STAMP, but this new organisation still has no policy on the building firms’ strengthening grip on design. In Liverpool, the need is to organise and co-ordinate action and discussion between architects and other groups along these lines. Designers need to open up adescription of their skills which enables them to work alongside other groups rather than feeling that if they do not lead, they have failed. There is an increasing number of examples of environmental and building work being done in either a collective or co-operative way. The contributors to group discussion were:— Mike Brown, Paul Coats, Chris Cripps, Robb MacDonald, Don Field, Pete Gommon, Bill Halsall, Jonty Godfrey, Frank Horton, Nigel Jones, Alison Lindsay, Graham Ward and others. The articles as published do not necessarily represent the views of contributors. Architects working In both the state and private sectorscould unite in mutual defence if the basis was an understanding of how their work fitted into the growth, change and interaction of private andstate capitals — rather than ae ums , sph competitive discourse confined to building form and techniques {which are, any increasingly outside our control). : ThePDSisaproposedreformationoflocalauthorityarchitectsdopeee ing in local areas. The RIBA’s move into ‘community architecture ,W' ich a a S te practice in the community, would be a similar venture if based on true par Se oiPaiaetivepractice.Whichisthebetterformat?Statepineoss eT from the relatively weak and private enterprise-oriented RIBA, whose prac 5. THE ‘REPRODUCTION’ OF ARCHITECTS Entry into the architectural profession is almost exclusively in the hands of the schools of architecture. Liverpool has two schools, at the University and the Poly If the first is too accademic, international in its outlook and disregards ; Liverpool, the second is too practical and local-signed to be more ‘practical’ and local in its caucus. These two schools have played the major role in supplying the members of the local architectural establishment (in addition to many architects for other areas). Only a few technicians and part-timers now make the grade, and this is not without a hard struggle during their attendance at the schools). going on. Of course, these general criticisms of architectural education are experienced by — individuals. In fact, education is very much a biographical process which isrevealed in the life cycle of individuals. Therefore, the following, partly factual, partly fictitious case study of Joey Bishop, a working class kid who makes the architectural grade, exams helped assessment and nearly al project work with little emphasis on written elped a poor exam performance and rewarded his consistent effort. jtectural education. +1 ie |' |at }| ly ——ssy —— + Pu r HF igCees a -- 4 | .@}| + ~— = a “ysoo iE 5 | 1 con ©t- Loe f HL Ls i an t nt \ (i ne fF|}— a Wace,an zCSE,EnglishLanguage2,EnglishLiterature1,Geography1, JoeyAeae andEngineeringDrawing1,Physics1.CSEhadbeengoodfor The process of producing professional architects is dominated by several bodies, notably the RIBA, who monitor intake standards and the content of courses. The RIBA Education and Practice Committee (EPEC) plays an important role in the con- trol of education. EPEC makes recommendations to the RIBA Council, where, if agreed to, they become policy and are put into effect by EPEC and its committees. One of the most important of the EPEC committees is the visiting board. Both the Liverpool schools have recently had visiting board inspections. The outcome ofa visit- ing board inspection Is a confidential report to the head of the school in which recommendations on standards and conditions are made. The weapon of refusal to re- cognise a course is a powerful force in the schools’ educational policy. Joey was born and brought up in a two bedroomed terraced house with no bath room and an outside toilet. He attended the local state primary school, he was a well btehaved and highly regarded pupil. He was expected to pass the 11+ and go on to the local grammar school. In 1962 Joey failed the 11+ examination — and was already classified by the system as a failure. Rather than the local Collegiate or Institute, it was Earle Road Secondary Modern School, ‘Never mind, Joey, there is always the 13+”, his mother had said. The 13+ never took place for Joey, and that was how much his mum knew about education. In fact, Earle Road’s greatest claim to fame was 4 first division footballer. Enquiries among both staff and students at both schools suggest a sparse under- standing of the way their architectural education ts controlled. The two aspects of architectural education, ‘skill teaching’ anda ‘liberal education’ are encompassed by both schools to different degrees, perhaps depending on whether salaried or manager- jal positions are aimed at. The Liverpool schools don’t seem to question whether their establishments are sutiable for achieving the aims of learning, which of the many architects, technicians or builders in the city they could'leatn their skills from, or how this should be done. The result is an ad-hoc exchange of arhitects’ contributions to teaching programmes in the schools in return for qualified people to staff their offices: this depends on personal contact and there is little awareness of what is really Things started to happen for Joey in his first year at secondary school; ‘he worked well and fully deserved his high position in class’ to quote his school report. He never asked many questions, but just got on and did things consistently well. To his teachers Joey was a good pupil from a good home, he was never in trouble, and always conscientious .. .head prefect material. When he was 14, Joey’s parents visited the eco andweretoldthatJoeystoodagoodchanceofdoingquitewellatCSE.They eenbreredanesayesbrightfuturefortheirson,theydidn’tknowwhatCSEwas Fords Cerin + 'poe aqualification, enough to keep Joey away from the docks or Ns aan ae y this tended towipe out Joey's previous failure at 11. The CSE and RenESRC wouldbeJoey's ‘saviour’.MrJames,thewoodworkteacher,who dbVAISERERKS inners than you have sawn wood’, was very influencial on Joey's the doing that urrounded by spoke shaves and planes Joey was in his element. It was Rbounthewinter:eee andnotthethinkingaboutit.MrJamestalkedalot Recreate Fine education and Joey was impressed. Secondary school years passed at English laser 2 ne about them. Top of the class after top of theclass. Bad only edithath pelling) he shone at geography and technical drawing. It was suggest- at hecouldaimforajobasadraughtsman. The discussion of fundamental issues is non-existent in both the Liverpool schools. What discussion that does take place centres around such issues as course content, the desirability of lectures as opposed to seminars, year structure as opposed to work-bases or exams as opposed to continual assessment, to the exclusion of all else. Any protest is futile, disunited and ineffectual. For example, student criticism of the courses ‘jacking in real life content’ is dismissed as being of small value simply by virtue of the fact that each student is there only for 3 or 5 years. Prehensi % icate inReais so itwas off to Anfield Comprehensive Schoo! with his CSE certif FROM THE COMMUNITY TO ARCHITECTURE ..... sere ieacoecomprehensivetotake‘A’levels.‘Everthoughtaboutdoing load isgene He oe. the goegraphy teacher had asked. In for a penny !n for a pound, bit ofa surprise Se results were no surprise to Joey’s English teacher, they were 4 what was going © Joey but more than anything else he didn’t really have any idea it was all about oa mowevaly and perhaps more importantly, no-one explained what really understoc AR fact, it wasn’t until his later years of university education that he Joey was od what matriculation meant. The family had misgivings, perhaps aiming too high. However, the school fought hard for a trial year at the com: might raise some questions about arch ’iii Joey Bishop is an architect, he was trained at the Liverpoo {University iSchool of arcnitectare! He is the only child of Joseph and Mary Bishop. Joseph isachargeliand in a local facory, Mary owns a small knitwear shop. They're a Liverpool family, the most prosperous and comfortably off in their neighbourhood. They own their or . terraced house, and Joey’s first real job is to process an improvement grant applicatio for his parents’ house. ciliata Joey's first task at the comprehensive was to decide which ‘A‘ levels to try for. Joey had been good at geography and had enjoyed the projects associated with it, so it was geography ‘A’ level for him. Geology was interesting and there were plenty of field trips so he had a stab at that as well. However, before Joey could get on with his ‘A’ levels he had to get one 'O' level in English. After two attempts he succeeded in passing with grade 5. Whatever came later, this, perhaps more than anything, proved to be the greatest failing of Joey's education. At the beginning of the upper sixth,, many of his school mates were considering teachers training colledes, polytechnics and universities. The headmaster at Anfield thought it might be worth Joey trying out an application form for university in addition to the technical colleges and polytechnics he was trying for. What to apply for? The only possibility seemed to be planning, well geography and planning went together. Six choices of university doing undergraduate planning degrees. . Sheffield, Birmingham Aston, Heriot Watt, Newcastle, Cardiff, Manchester. No offers, no interviews, in fact nothing. Joey felt hard done by. Brixton College of Building made him an offer of two C's and so did the local polytechnic, so Joey set his mind on one of these, at least, that was until September and the’A’ level results came along. Joey got an A and a B. The staff at Anfield thought it would be a good idea to go to a university, but it wasn’t as easy as that. Then came September 1970, and the UCCA clearing scheme; Course Code 5100, Architecture, Liverpool School of Architecture — without knowing what ‘architecture’ was, Joey was off on his architecture education. ‘Architecture, what's architecture?’ thought Joey. The postman brought him an answer in the form of a programme of pre-term work. A book list, from which Joey was to select two and write an essay. Already Joey was at 4 disadvantage. The letter also asked him to make a diary about his thoughts and react ions in observing and studying some designed artifact. ‘What's a designed artifact?’ Joey thought. His confusion was made worse by the helpful clarification ‘anything from a teaspoon to 4city’. The jargon of architectural education was introduced early on in Joey's education, even before he arrived at the school of architecture. Joey wrote about a block of high rise flats for his pre-term essay. He noted the simplicity and symmetry of the design. He wrote about the external facade of the block of flats, the surface patterns, colours and textures. Even at this stage, with only a few preconceptions, Joey assumed architecture was something to do with ‘facades’. He thought little of his home surroundings, a house without a bathroom in.an area suffering planning blight. He thought nothing about the community. In fact, despite living at home he was to become increasingly separat- ed from his home background. He was progressively cut off from the life of hissocial group and family; neither was he a member of the ‘street gang’ and, even at univers ity, sex came late for Joey. After all, he always did his homework. Arca tecsered fFae= Wet ope — Joey consistently equated architecture with drawing, so he thought he'd be ok. He knew he had done well at technical drawing and he thought his woodwork would be useful, Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The graphic artist, from the school of art knew how to draw, Joey thought, or at least it sounded as if he did. Joey never s2 him draw. One of Joey's first projects had something to do with the ‘considers’ .on of a line’. ‘As for his woodwork experience, well, that wasn’t really on either. The yea! Joey arrived at the school of architecture the one and only craftsman technician was being laid off, Whilst Joey was at the school the workshop turned into 4 glorified model making room withalittle used wind tunnel in one corner. : Architecture must have something to do with buildings, Joey thought, but people at the school of architecture kept telling him it was more than just buildings. In fact, during his first week at the school, Joey came to the conclusion that it was glossy architecture in the university and buildings in the polytechnic. For a short time the folk singing, records, wine and coffee till the early hours: became part of Joey’s life. An occasional visit to the halls of residence to visit ‘friends’. He replaced his football scarf with a school of architecture scarf and stopped ‘going to the match’ on Saturday afternoon. In his second year Joey questioned the value of a sketch design for 2 community centre in an area of high rise housing, when the local community had said they didn’t want one. At the external review of his work, the examiner suggested that Joey got on wath wba he was told to do without questioning projects. ; as ee Haan oe to concentrate on working, 4 language he knew well, Joey kepta easene rawingskillsdevelopedtoafineartandhedrewhiswaythrough Seciea : honours degrees. Professional practice and part three examinations in, but that aspect is another story. After fifteen years of ‘graft’, Joey had made it; an architect. coceretats school of architecture was no different than secondary school or the See Sistine Soeseee of hurdles, the scholarship fence which he had jumped by, Teetinesseea eae-Heacquiredfactsratherthanhandlingandusing eed aeal Tones Ps ed to thinkdifferently, to experiment to learn but he only Relsea hiner Be is personality. In this respect the school of architecture neither indered him. eeHaeendofthecourseJoeyiswellonthewaytobeingafullypaidupmember i urgeoisie — and he doesn’t understand how it happened. PES Uatie nen the school of architecture Joey was taught many lessons. He Seaeta noc x ofparty-goingandconversationtogetherwiththepatina anvehinatlierenee: isdrivetoworkandachievewasreinforced,and,if ee eien Mey ceue increasingly competitive. Joey certainly became a highly selt- Gea shone La Aa even arrogant. Equally, he was alienated and drawn away resha SEhGGIGE meee a .Finally, the practical skills he had acquired were too open, Joaeihcd osennh ecture design skills must be arcane. ranemnitting ae a powerful socialising mechanism as well as a knowledge Graledueston palyaere oe eauOn is a subtle, but important part of the architect- EMauEISeT IST;.rchitecturaleducationisamajorpartoftheprocessof se ttioniintalclise : eo of continually recreating and maintaining the architects thi tandawaranes ociety. In fact, itis an indictment of Liverpool's educationalists enes of this is buried in the sand. ; Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Group of Liverpool Designers Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/4b3c14cefec204ca5d84327a72a64c0f.pdf fb61daa500d59abc3875e3330cd161b1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Account Subject The topic of the resource ACID Supplement (GLC) "Reform of Local Authority Planning & Architecture 10 pp Description An account of the resource There is little doubt that architects in general are well intentionea, their aim is basically to benefit society in (seme vague way) and people Cin they are imprisoned in their traditional role of entrepreneurs for the ruling elite, whose objectives may be very different. Thus, even when engaged in projeects of the highest. social relevance - housing.’ schools, etc. - the architect may fiRi that he is forced to accept Subsstandard)sites,‘ee costlimits, ’ shoddy workmanship- and all the other Architects may talk about technological solutions,. velitical solutions or secial solutions »- anything to absolve themselves of sponsibility for the unhappy state of buildings today... birt..the anchitect.isneithen.politisien or industrialist end he has Little influence in either field (thanks mainly to the RIBA) Radical Chenves in architec pg can only come about when society itself, first undergoes a transformation - + when the balanceof tenAisi? Yet society is changing end architects will be ef ordinary people, is a significant feature These groups will grow in strength and number over the next few years until opposition te the interests The Labour Party, at their recent conference in Blackpool, committed themselves to a policy of some form of land nationalisation. While © welcoming this step, there is an obviousdanger Oaiteleadingtoevenmorecentreslisetionand oSRRCOMMEt:clear(adil:oa erosionoftherightsofindividualsandsmall wee : communities. O ‘ i; ; en Pee(8oy American (town pldnnin? «is they a can no longer ¢ Be. Getting City Hall in New Yor to Amentify wad othe & given (8)jane Jacobs once elias “aatke atte ae Wey. [Serpea “Neighbourhood control” is REFORM OF LOGAL AUTHORITY PLANNING AND ARCHT TECTURE - piedHe. J" forced eventually to adant their F ee:)ir ;re*: When John’ Ruskin trefused toaccept its. whole outlook end working methods, whether they want to or not. Gold Medal in 1874 he wrote; “The.— The emergence of local amenity groups, community pom oo oe te exalt the power of their own proiession over the imiind OL the public, power ‘Deeng if in the preseat century synonymous with i 4 i, ai ree. onsandneighbour! d - Ne Ae 9 goty * Qe oS ACOcd aS V1L0Mn srouze of and % all kinds, dedicated tofighting bad planning, architecture which cares nothing for the needs wealth’ a generalised sense). However, as professiorials, manifestations of the meagre value thet a middle-class dominated society puts updén provisions under-orivileged. Society gets its masters demand ... high rise workers to live in, feceless:office others to work in. ghettos for the towers for ce Tis Bae ian ated spl governmeat - at apt ee lienated local government and big . t now obsessed with erentasa tion, Americans are conzing usiness wil ave 1B .,“ioe teenoe providsdfor f realise.“Ghatbigcityadministra.: tluns are such jugzernauts thar constitutionally. for the the buildings — Such a policy must, we believe, be combined with the legal recognition of community organisations and a constitutional change to ensure that they have a say and control overlocal issues - planning, + education, welfare, etc. Radical local authority architects can assist in the emergence of such local power structures not only by supporting their local groups and lesking information to others, but also by giving constant and wide publicittyo alternative methods of designing housing, schools, towns, etc. which will encompass full participetion (before decisions are reached) for thoseaffected. Letus examine some alternatives. Participation much abused, devalued and misunderstood. Participation simply means a return to the architects! traditional role - that of interpreter of the client's requirements and the fulfilling of these in accordance with the latters best interests. No worthwhile architecture has been, or will be, achieved without a healthy relationship and understanding between designer and client. Prior to industrialisation, the architect's client was usually on the same wavelength as himself - the cultured patron who could discuss 'styles', knew the latest fashions and tastes. Or, for the majority, it was a case of getting Fred the builder down the high street o kneck something up ~- using tried and tested craft based technioues and forms. For the peasant it was often a case of build it yourself - the perfect intekration of client, builder and architect, or ‘participation’. Client Today we are informed that our real client must be anonymous. We refer to him/her by the abstract term'people', 'the users' or 'them'. We have a false client to compensate - the administratorwh,o interprets what is best for the real client yet who is even more out of touch with 'them' than we are, sitting all day on our behinds, trying to conjure up attractive shapes which have little relevance or meaning for the human beings who will be forced to inhabit or work in them. The whole parevhernalia of the social sciences - surveys, computer predictions, ‘rational’ appraisals, density evaluations - are employed as substitute for real contact with those who we are really responsible to. These techniques are sectioned officially for they are merely another side of authoritarian control in fasionable pseudo-objective garb - the statistics are in the hands of the authority to be manipulated as they think fit - often they are not even disclosed, Beware of those who justify their actions with spurious technological/ Illustration, by David Knight, MSIA, from the Skeffington report The word 'participation' has been core The mnainsprings of local government, activity in the London of future wih lie in the k with which people ident ¢ ‘through which they express their yneeas and deniands. ' For all their faults, the Lon- don boroughs are beginning to /understand this and aet upon if, They are the’ real successes. of 'these first five vears. If Lenron local government. is to live again, it is they who deserve the en ‘courageiient and the suppor. @ anei BIa nicaStata analCSE wandBncatchmanehteLEee e,BeeTEebeFne TRS @ ct c as ee ee, The aim is to describe objectively the subjectivo views or. this to be the case. The numbers are used in a comparative way: one thing is 3 isaSS reainecethtataene conceptualisations of these people and if possible to put: numbers on to both these concepts and the patterns which underlie them. Putting numbers to subjective experionce is something psychologists have done for many years— worker ratings, discretionary awards, public opinion polls and even the hit parade are common situations in which subjective experience is turned into numbers. So it seems likely that people can use numbers meaningfully to express their thoughts, and many psychological studies have proved better or worse than another. It is only a short jump to: introduce degrees into this comparison and to label therm. Lological mumbo jumbo. We need more designers who can apprise the problems through historical enalysis and social and cultural criteria drawn from direct empirical experience. A job which one would expect equipped for. fmuveus tell the ; from, a Dui affeet them © ‘T have a Vision of the F uture, chum, The workers’ flatsin fields of soya beans Tower up like silver pencils, score on score: | And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come From microphones in communal canteens “No Right! No Wrong! All's perfect, fevermore. © [] High-rise towers have proved a disastrous experiment in urban dwelling. They give many of their occupants acute uneasiness. Some people arrange their furniture so as to avoid any view of the ver- tiginous plunge from their thir- tieth-floor window. Fer mothers with small children, they present insoluble problems ofplay and supervision. The eleySion become places of dirt and danger. The wholesale buildozing of little streets and houses to make way for them destroys delicate net- works of service and friendship which are simply not recreated between different floors in new apartment houses. The ground areas between the towers, which were supposed to provide needed air and space and greenness, can become windy deserts below vast buildings which tunnel the weather down their vertical sides as dco mountain ranges. Some town planners even main- tain that. the claim made for high-rise dwellings — that other- wise even more little houses would be scattered over the countryside — is not borne out by economic or spatial necessity. In a number of cities, areas of similar size, with alternations of four to eight floor blocks round enclosed gardens and courtyards, can house virtually the same number of people and provide the intimacy and security which parents in particular jook for. Objections contact with the eventual users of our buildings at the briefing stag Objections from architects to this are always in terms of operational problems, not on vrinciple. In the field of housing they can be summarised as follows:+ ‘People do not know what they want! "How can progress be made - people only like what they know! (3) 'If you ask people what they went they will say a ‘house and garden', and of course they cannot heve thatti! The first statement is3 a i anybody who has We ask nothing less than direct ever had anything to do with community action will tell vou. people can usual. 7 ‘ee hen it concerns them directly X environmental iy and coherently - it is thers to ask them. statement is an insult to us as a Ith» The variation - it is to imply that, ata ULUEQ, the user will ask for some outlandish personal folly which will be. totally unsuited to future occupants. If we are unable to conduct vith clients, putting forward alternatives and discussion limitations, construction techniques, elc. we are not much use as a profession. One suspects hat these sort of objections stem from experience in private practice where the architect has to deal with a power elite, used to bullying their own way through. Ordinary people tend to be much more receptive and co~opverative. Private ¥ mind. the architect to be new solutions, cost 3 Sector if we wish to find solutions to woTM (yy The third objection usually comes from an architect who himself lives in a house with a gerden. What arrogance, to deny anyone what he has himself! Those who really believe in the 'scarcity of land! myth should themselves rent a flat at the ton of the nearest point block. We would go a long way to bettering buildings if architects designed with themselves in the participatory design of mass housing, let us turn to the private sector - wheré consumer pressure exists. You would not find too msny system—built concrete towers here. Whatever our job is, or should be, we seem to be more concerned with side issues or irrelevant conceptalisations. The growth of a separate'management:' structure in Local Authority departments is worsening this situation. Architects at the top do not concern themselves with the design of buildings any more, but employ a whole range of irrelevant management tools such as ‘coordination’, 'rationalisation', -‘decision centralisation’, etc. The results are often a sort of bureaucratic architecture designed to be understood by administrators - simplified components and grid layouts (see Ronan Points, MACE, Thamesmead). It is with the entrenched attitudes of 'management' that our biggest struggle lies. they will stoutly maintain that they are mere architects, tools of the councillors, while simultaneously playing puny political games behind locked doors. We shall be tackling ways of breaking these barriers down in future editions of ACID news. Workload There are more architects in Great Britain than in any other country. This shows up in a vast local Authority like the GLC where qualified architects are doing jobs well below their capacity - often quite menial jobs. Yet we believe that there is enough work to be spread evenly. One fault is that jobs are just too BIG - especially housing jobs. A vast estate like Thamesmead is designed, it seems, in the nineteenth century Beaux-Arts tradition of a master plan with the architecture conforming to a coordinated and consistent master plan. The designhierarchy is similarly archaic - a small group of policy makers delegate sections to groups who must conform to the overall technology and style. The end product is often a sea of ugly, grey, inhuman concrete ~- and highly uneconomic as well. All in the name of consistency - the sort of thing only architects appreciate - so long as they do not have to live there. It is design by balsa wood and birds eye view autocrats and has nothing to do with people or living or anything. Scale of Work To implement the kind of 'real client' participation outlined above and @) They say a camel ‘is a horse designed by a committee, “but in my experience that is a pretty, good shot atit.[should expectahorse- designing committee to come up with something possessing several different kinds of legs, and also much smaller .than the original expectation. A spider would be near the mark. @ THE GREATER London Coun- til and the Inner London Educa- tion Authority together bave an annual revenue budget of £350m, and an annual capital budget of a further £150m.-—-£500m. a year -total spending. This, as Desmond Piummer, the G.L.C.’s leader, is fond of pointing out, is “big business by any standards.” (Compare for instance, Ford Moior’s annual turnover of £488m.) . How is this vast organization,’ with over 100,000 full- and part- time employees, managed ? What replaces the profit motive which motivates managers in the private sector ? / Mr. «Gaffney, who is Tory “member for Ealing, regards recent changes at Counly Hall as pari of “a major revolution ‘through local government. Value ‘for money has become a_ substi- ‘tute for the profit motive”, The ‘traditional approach that you had certain services to provide, and pro- vided a first-class service froma the available resources, has had to be modified in the face of.“ scream- ing inflation” and the huge scale of the G.L.C’s activitics, “It is not now enough to offer a first: class service. You must do it at the least possible cost”, says Mr. Gafiney. This is where the management ‘tool of planned programming and |budgeting, now being grafted on to the G.L.C.’s rather hierarchical and _departmentalized administrative system, offers such dividends ic a. public authority. For it not only. gives the clected members,to whom the political decisions on how! much to spend an what must always belong, a more meaningful picture of the cost and benefit of any par- ticular course, but-—quite as impor- tant—-for the first time pronises to give them a sound basis for com- paring the value-for-money [o7. cost-and-benefit) tag of competing alternatives. spreading AGahanMkEI CEiaeaA WI to employ our architecturd manpower to its fullest capacity, we propose that housing and other jobs be broken down into small units about the size of a housing association scheme each with its own job architect and group of tenant-clients ob community representatives. From then on the job architect, in consultation with his client, is free to come uo with whatever solution he thinks best - free from all constraints of ‘conforming to 'an overall concept', 'consistency', coherence' and all the rest of that meaningless architectural claptrap. His only constraints would be the usual ones - Byelaws, Planning, etc. The educational or housing administrators would still play theirrole in this arrangement, except the rules they followed would be changed so that they no longer had overall power to ‘interpret’ tenants'or teachers'or kids' requirements. The architect could ask them directt This would also lend itself to other forms of housing, say, if a tenant wanted to go for self build he would be allocated a plot with the architect as advisor. Private tenants could apply for plots. Rehabilitation could be easily incorporated into this arrangement. Young architects in both private and public sectors would get a chence. A variety of competitions could be held, students could be given their own (small?) jeb instead of being used as cheap detailing laboun, architects would spend perhaps 50% of their time in the district they were designing for, instead of 1% as at present. Perhaps local. Authorities could employ most of their architectural staff as consultants ~ it is a notorious fact that private architects can achieve better results quicker than those in employment bypessing much of the bureaucracy and clumsy management. Ferhaps one of the first things to do to improve local authority architecture is to abolish the architecture departments. 2eceasecainwine awares 220kckca eta ncaaasada etaethetceonattiie iheedeliseisSaiBiaSD i PLANNING REFORM It is not much good considering alternative proposals for resolving a situation if circumstances will prevent you from adopting them. Yet this is fundamentally the problem at Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, or any other central redevelopment site of significance - for whatever may be the solution in terms of the public interest, the initiative in a development project basically rests with the landowner, who needs not to make his actions accountable to the public. The exception occurs when the local authority holds the land, but on central urban sites of a commercial nature, councils generally argue that they ought not to enter on enterprises involving financial speculation with public funds. As a consequence, in the process of redevelopment many businesses are dispossessed, although it is well known that they play a significant part in the life of the area. The question then is whether the local authority ought not to reconsider the ethics of its attitude towards speculative development. When, for instance, the London ‘'ransport Board is sinking £90 million in constructing the Fleet Line, which published estimates say will augment property values in south~east London alone by £100 million, of which it will not recoup any, is not this a clear case of public funds. being employed to foster commercial speculation, and on an enormous scale? The conclusion is that the public authority is acting as nothing less than ayproperty developer, albeit a highly philanthropic one. Equally therefore, the public authority may take the initiative in the redevelopment of Piccadilly Circus and any other urban centre. if this were the case, then is it possible to consider which alternatives are in the best interests of the public, a situation which would be far more positive than that which exists at present. eceoeeeaneoeeeee To pursue the question a bit further, as architects and planners we are very aware of the shortage of public funds for providing facilities in local authority schemes - to the extent that projects suffer from the absence of social and environmental amenities. The example quoted of the L.T.B. show that there are substantial financial resources created through development, “THERE -is a feeling that they have had as much change as they can take.” This remark by a Greater London Coun cil “ofiicial sums up the current mood ‘of antagonism against a rash of mas- sive development projects which could ‘alter the character of the capital’s cen- tral area beyend recognition. Extreme public disquiet is showing a variety of forms. The outery against Sir Basil Spence’s design for a new office block fer Government use on the site of Queen Annc’s Mansions by St James’s Park has boen based largely on aesthetics and bulk in a sensitive area, close enough to the Houses of Parliament for Members to take an active critical interest. Piccadilly Circus stirs up opposition ‘for different reasons. There, not only { the seale of any development coneern, but also the whole ive issue of speculative offices and associated profits, with the loss of a jhost of small business activities, such as istrip clubs, amusements arcades, shops cand restaurants, in favour of bigger, ‘blander places which can afford the higher rents. ® (The distribution of prosperity isdangerously skewed. Withit ai affluent economy, minorities who _ are handicapped by ethnic preju- ‘dice or age or sickness tend to be. ieft behind to observe vicariously on television how the luckier three-quarters live. And, in plane- ‘tary society as a whole, it is threc- quarters who live badly and, as their numbers rise, face bleaiz: prospects of living better. To restore balance and hope, to moderate the despairs and pres- sures, to achieve common policies for .a viable political order, are thus the preconditions of any decent human environment on ‘Planet Earth. _ © LT think: it is something to do with the public attitude towards the environmen Phere js a climate 0 VU atte >STVSTtsaad OTL ing contidence that it will.” ® the Fleet Line producing a nett profit of at least £10 miliion. Another very recent example occurs in a residential development by a Sussex council who paid £24 million for some farm land whose value as a farm was a mere £17,000; the nett profit here being in excess of £2 million. . o aie co had ee oewe: deRab onese edeae aae acesa paced ihe esdeSeieeseae aeen a RElS aSe Be «i ' Tf estate agents aré right in sensing a 12 per cent rise In West End office rents in the past year, it would bring the capital gain to around £10 millions, jess interest charges and maintenance costs. +. de a eeereeeeeooeee e ~“Camden’s irritation with the continuing emptiness of Centre Point--and its sister building, Space House, off Wingsway —--is two-edged., Not only are there 11,000 families on the ‘council’s housing waiting list while the 36 flats of Centre Point stand empty, ‘but it is estimated that the /council has Jost nearly £1 mii- lion in rates; because the two buildings, being empty, pay only half rates. “Tt is a lunatic use of the and. If we cannot do better than that, it’ is a great criticism of the way our society carries on,” Mrs Miller said. If the council is able to force a showdown over Centre Point it will be the first body te do so. ‘The developers have so far been content to sit on en asset which is rapidly gaining in’ capital vaiue as rents in Lon- don continue to rise. The theory behind this ts presumably that as most office lettings are for a fixed period ‘of five, seven or more years, it is more profitable to get, +say, £8 a square foot next year than settle for £6 this year, ‘The snag has been that with office rents continuing to rise—one cstate agent esti- ‘mated by as much as 12 per eent jo the West End in the past year alone—there hes never been 4 strong inceniive for Oldhani states to close 3 nent in land is “ ise who gat hers deal. ‘ Its emptiness, as such, 1s not likely to frighten the The project cost £5 millions. On the basis that its 150,000 square feet covid developers. have been rented at £4 a isquare foot in 1964, the build- ing would have been wer £9 miliions—-£4 millions profit. Last year it was estimated that if Mr Hyams could get £6 2 square foot, the capital ‘value of the building would ‘be over £13 millions, giving him a profit of £8 millions. eeHeBowe6 eae ‘, \*% carats *e There seems to be no reason why some, if not all, of these profits should not go into the local authority purse to spend on social provisions. After all, it is the community that is creating the profit. To re-restablish public initiative in development projects, to substantiate the economic basis of public building, would be to redirect town planning out of the rut which, to quote from a recent article in the Guardian, only consists in granting planning consents, to its true role of meeting the needs of the community. This is an issue which politicians’in this country have actively supported for many years. Winston Churchill, speaking on the People's Rights in his reforming Budget of 1909, said hope you will understand that when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the precess then with the individual land~owner. T have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who wakes money by unearned incre morally a worse man than anyone e his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. it is not the individual I attack, it is the system. Tt is not the man who vis bad, it is the law which is bad. Tt is not theyman who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other man do; it is the State which would be blameworthy were it not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.' The outcome of the reforms was curtailed by the advent of the First World War and opposition from the House of Lords. But in 1931 the Labour Government of Ramsey MacDonald passed the Finance het which introduced the principle of Land Value taxation It was an impropitious time for such a measure, the world economic crisis and the collapse of the Government leading to the Coelition, caused the Act to be suspended and eventually repealed. The issue was raised again, in 1936 when, following a Renort by its Finance Coiimittee, the London County Council aporoved a policy for legislation to give Lt effect. As the Government declined to act, the L.C.C. tabled a Private Bill, the London Rating (Site Values) Bill of 1938. The Bill wes defeated and once again war intervened to frustrate reform which had mach supvort from local authorities in the country. the economic rights of the community with respect to land. Because it is this issue which forms the basis AAAS (Eee ofplanninglaw,thereformsshouldbestudiedinany \\ <<ae consideration of planning reform. X To conclude in our present times, the Government in \ 1965 presented the Land Commission, of which the opening paragraph reads: 'For centuries the claim of private landowners to develop their land unhindered and to enjoy the exclusive right to profit from socially created values when their lend is developed has been questioned, especially when the land is sold to the comminity which itself has created the value realised. The view that control over development must be exercised by the community is not now seriously disputed and it is generally accepted that the value attached to land by A. All planning proposals to be published on an obligatory basis. The information to be thorough, factual and available in time for objections to be made. All interested parties in an organisation seeking planning approval should be named. beginning of a retreat from realis- ine their full human potential. ®;: 9 7 ui starvation. When we remember ‘under what continuous stimulus of natural variety ~ of colour, of ‘scent, of sound and light and congeea et ete oo Each of the measures mentioned above sought reform of HELD STA i the right to develop it is a value which has ” a substantially been created by the community. A growing population, increasingly making their homes in ro i | ie | great cities, has not only made effective public control over land indispensable; it has also made indefensible a system which allows landowners or land % penenyevaapeeneesnaeteencomment 7. anor-1ieeeree le BmyNtTH.themiddieofthelastcen- 5 co wW # e Sas very large, in value of urban land resulting either . onaieee from government action, whether central or local, or from the growth of social wealth and population’. a Sis the vetrictions Xl’ about heights of building were, ‘relaxed so that landlords might make pavements shuffle through thick exhaust fumes over- looked by that symbol of speculators enterprise - the ultimate Architects’! and Planners' non-event Centre Point (now empty for eight years). © '.7} We do notfully understand the If satisfactory civilised urban standards are ever to be achieved it is evident that now is the time for a cool, hard look at the operants in planning and design and to ask how despite teams of seemingly skilled professionals at Central and Local Government level the urban scene has become steadily worse since the last war. i touch — the first men began to develop their imaginative grasp upon living reality and feel their ? athe ‘ Concurrent with such an examination, planning controls creative humanity, we may. wonder what will be the result of must be overhauled as an emergency measure, legislation must be brought to bring about monitoring systems which subject all planning proposals to real scrutiny in public interest - a basis for this is outlined below:- acontinuous adaptation ofhuman more money, the skyline of the City of longer-term results of extreme cultural, ethical and emotional _way towards fully conscious and existence, over centuries, to ‘towering buildings, concrete walls, personal isolation, darkened skies, roaring traffic, raucous noise, see ssacalsccesaMhanciDinnaka wlRO aSa Nna A APRTBEaOScsii fis iat i= For the unconvinced I suggest a walk from Oxford London seen above the Thames must have been the most beautiful in Europe. SARISF-A j 5BIE Circus to Tottenham Court Road on a late night “We can se this from the paintings of shopping evening. » Canaletio and hear it from Words- ; ‘ : wills !worth’s sonnet On Westminster Bridge. People packed like herd enimals on inadequate - = 7 any Silt _polluted water and dirty streets.. Such an urban environment might begin to produce human whose very ability to survive in such conditions could mark the beings. Be Demolition of any building to be the subject of a permission with full opportunity for the people in the area to object. A time lag should be introduceé inte the procedure to ailow proper consideraticn to take place. All urban fabric to be given conservation area status so that redevelopment takes place only after thorough appraisal. All buildings tc be listed and classified as part of the conservation process So as to avoid the 'fashionable' and ‘obvious set piece! preservation stances. - Monitoring groups to be established on a formal Kee es | h - ‘ yehae To. ~ : @% : ° is basis both inside (Professional participation) and ©J All major building and development schemes to be appraised by a body elected by the oil dock ins ( wae ( )Erie Lyons in AJ ()Paul Jennings (Guardian 4 > e eser Strieter penalties (1)Evenibg Standard (2)Architects Journal led So the working party has been pre- sented with such ideas as stric trols for demolition, the 0: a tax on the value added ¢ planning consent, stricter penalti unlet offices and shops in new develop- ments in central areas and str regulations for the protection f servation areas, In addition, 0 the problem of ensuring how fonants of long standing, both res j tial and businesses, should be equivalent premises, when r 5 development, and at rents in scale with their previous ievel. / Delaying tactics are also a possibility, It is not generally realised that : ship of land is not a pre-req the submission of a planning ls “ion. Nowadays the owner has to he informed but there is nothing to stop = Beinedieetm Baw ie 4 j basis covering locaal infiilll schemes totc nati:onal4 eccnomi+c|/indeluastria4l,/ Dondon with al our elaborate plan: sdalew anentpryl tcc hy be eh ecome as Te a aes pid Bg ‘aa transport pohicy colusmaidnreicenstlty. “It's late to get a gitip. Wt 1 | i " 4 : © int Bis would demand esecess t 5 ~ ana shat - 7 ee . aut plans and proposals they have no right to irampie down Dic | i and work in conjunction with shadow structures .of iaa familiar streets. and disregard the ; i arrech’itecCtuss. : pplleenners 34 sSoolliicelitvoorrs, engi¢neersok SOCi GLOLV SUS » etc.,; heing an organised version or ‘character and scale and peopolfea : : ‘oeSs walitasty? city simply because it is convenient, i ‘ economic, or highly profitable. B uiathastetets cd aa - ‘ 6 - | : comment | 2.2 Public interest avpriasal P.T.A. | | outside (Public participation) the Central and Local anyone, providing they ah in the forms correctly and know what they are about, from putting forward theiy own i 7 ideas for proper consideration by the : | 4 te 4 when he pushed in an application to i \11 schemes produced by public authorities should convert Centre Point into flats, though { 4 rott Sante a : . be vetted by internally elected professionals av . this one was referred back for techn calreasons. However, Itseems me- 4 4 an officer level below that in contact with what extraordinary that filibustering 0! ‘ | time basis and their comment would be made public. MTA.opalata at wark 4 seec bs ate . Mr Anth@sy |Crosland oe nat halton,majoraeveopmentmWceniras ; ii vee quality of work is suriic biy high no department need fear this type of appraisal London at least until the verdict is ‘available on the Greater London Development Plan. Other suggestions shave included some kind of planing 1 oe hon bering bodies to be established on a twe tier i : Lend i eae “ : Pl g Public participation. inauiry. commission te consider the pwronbylerm. 4 anid a ian “ny at 4 4 a “ . acs 4 4 : : ‘a y 4 i Ldatl: 9 Governmmeenntt FPlaanninging =and Archi:tectduenrevis ses sieniean des departments. 5 Professional h fessional participation. de : i, re sot : . - = 3 committees . These groups would serve on a limited this sort which could give a breathing Space, has not been moreprevelent. \ 2.1 Area Yetting groups A.V.G. intreduce the London (Ce Buliding) aay Extreme, ‘ many existing should be published permissions. the whole spectrum of planning installations. from ning COnuBEE he oeue e kican. Absatdragasl, a theird-rAartcehitectAsm!ericaJnournciatly',s lie Qn a street or neighbourhood basis these groups Sut developers, public anc Tate, ‘must somehow be made awere ‘thet protest groups. AeV.G. together with all planning This would operate at a town. city or regional ms v regione 12, e references: o Slidtp aes: nate0'sli Iho council. Mr Berman showed the way Uy or Hd od ineffective body the R Fi Arts Commissi ineffective body the Royal Fine Arts Commission. . “ebdly :; A.V.G.'s described above. The intention here (3}Roger Walters in . Times interview. would be to replace and revitalise and put on a more socially conscious basis that tired and )John Bet jeman. )Observer Groups of P.I.A.'s could join in assessing nationally significant proposals such as mn installati cas} OWS ACID GLC Architecture Club News, Room 671(D),County Hall North Block Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource ACID Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/c0d7439a4065b3b8c678b27cca345642.pdf 2fd047e20c83401dd9e59cf0de86b11c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Attendance List PDS Conference Subject The topic of the resource 34 Names and addresses of attendees at PDS Conference in Birmingham Description An account of the resource Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Murray Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06 May 1978 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/285e9ac1768e57ff6fab557d6157b33c.pdf c81de158ad0d65bd0d288822b559e41b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Background Subject The topic of the resource Following the Hull Congress in 1977, it was considered that a more concentrated programme of research and action was required and an enlarged NDS Group evolved into the Public Design Group mandated to present their developed proposals at a conference next year Description An account of the resource Batkground At i ts Hul l Congress in November 1977, the New Archi tecture Movement decided to develop further i ts pol icies relating to the publ ic sector. NAM I s interest in this field had already been establ i shed at our fi rst Congress in Harrogate in 1975 when the idea of a National Design Service was put forward. The National Design Service (NDS) proposals, based on a cri tique of architectural patronage, argued for a local ly based design service di rectly accountable to tenants and users. I t was suggested that Local Authority departments of archi tecture could provide the basis for such a service. Discussions on the NDS were continued i n i t ia l l y under the auspices of the former North London Group of NAM, and a smal I i ssue group evolved. Further NDS papers stressed the view that any long term advance in architectural service to the publ ic could only come through the publ ic sector. By late 1977, i t was cons idered that a more concentrated programme of research and action was requi red and fol lowing the Hul l Congress an enlarged N.D. S. Group were mandated to carry out the work and to arrange this conference. Since November, the NDS Group evolved ihto the Publ ic Design Service (PDS) Group. The Group, in addi tion to refining i ts critique of patronage and Local Authority working arrangements, has been studying the origins and present role of Local Authori ty departments of archi tecture and thei r relationship to the profession and private practice. Work has al so been done on the party pol i t ica l context and on an analysis of Housing Associations. The resul ts of this prel iminary study are presented here as draft papers, interim proposals, and suggested areas of future work. For further informat ion contact PDS Group NAM 9 Poland Street LONDON. . Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Murray Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 30 November 1997 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/9bf3a5b39c27f700e66478408b9e0ebf.pdf 9de39cae66276ec0f6f650fd71422c46 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Background Notes Subject The topic of the resource Background Notes following Hull Congress Resolution 1977 Description An account of the resource Background At its Hull Congress in November 1977, the New Architecture Movement decided to develop further its policies relating to the public sector. NAM's interest in this field had already been established at our first Congress in Harrogate in 1975 when the idea of a National Design Service was put forward. The National Design Service (NDS) proposals, based on a critique of architectural patronage, argued for a locally based design service directly accountable to tenants and users. It was suggested that Local Authority departments of architecture could provide the basis for such a service. Discussions on the NDS were continued initially under the auspices of the former North London Group of NAM, and a small issue group evolved. Further NDS papers stressed the view that any long term advance in architectural service to the public could only come through the public sector. By late 1977, it was considered that a more concentrated programme of research and action was required and following the Hull Congress an enlarged N.D.S. Group were mandated to carry out the work and to arrange this conference. Since November, the NDS Group evolved into the Public Design Service (PDS) Group. The Group, in addition to refining its critique of patronage and Local Authority working arrangements, has been studying the origins and present role of Local Authority departments of architecture and their relationship to the profession and private practice. Work has also been done on the party political context and on an analysis of Housing Associations. The results of this preliminary study are presented here as draft papers, interim proposals, and suggested areas of future work. For further information contact : PDS Group NAM 9 Poland Street LONDON. WI. Background through the public sector. this conference. PDS Group NAM 3 Poland Street LONDON. WI. At its Hull Congress in November 1977, the New Architecture Movement decided to develop further its policies relating to the public sector. NAM's interest in this field had already been established at our first Congress in Harrogate in 1975 when the idea of a National Design Service was put forward. The National Design Service (NDS) Proposals, based on a critique of architectural patronage, argued for a locally based design service directly accountable to tenants and users. It was suggested that Local Authority departments of architecture could provide the basis for such a service. Discussions on the NDS were continued initially under the auspices of the former North London Group of NAM, and a small issue group evolved. Further NDS papers stressed the view that any long term advance in architectural service to the public could only come By late 1977, it was considered that a more concentrated programme of research and action was required and following the Hull Congress an enlarged N.D.S. Group were mandated to carry out the work and to arrange Since November, the NDS Group evolved into the Public Design Service (PDS) Group. The Group, in addition to refining its critique of patronage and Local Authority working arrangements, has been studying the origins and present role of Local Authority departments of architecture and their relationship to the profession and Private practice. Work has also been done on the party political context and on an analysis of Housing Associations. The results of this preliminary study are presented here as draft papers, interim Proposals, and suggested areas of future work. For further information contact Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Murray/PDS Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 1977 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/4a1ea0cd30a53dd2f9ad92fedf11b963.pdf 8cdc3c5bf84e29ec6f34ff32be5da361 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/070df04ca1a338eeed29f698782658d1.pdf 478423a77c89849f5a117e27eaaba682 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Building Design Article Subject The topic of the resource Building Design article by John Tulloch commenting on NAM PDS group report to Minister of Housing Description An account of the resource John Tulloch comments.’ THE RIBA’s case for Faced by formulations like | ‘NAM concedes _ that community architecture is this out of the institute’s own j changes ‘in built form — the now: expected to. go to mouth one is reminded that ; new low rise/medium density Housing and Construction ‘Minister Reg Freeson next month. When he gets it, he will have had time to read, mark and inwardly digest a characteristically combative Statement of what community architecture should be from the New Architecture Movement. The main ingredient of NAM’s report* to the minister is a swift kick at some rather vulnerable parts of the Institute’s case. Cries of “‘Foul’’ canbe expected. Pecksniff was an architect.| dogma — and changes in With this sort of patronising ' tenant involvement leading to philanthropy (‘‘the poor’’!); adegreeoflocalcontrolhave mingled with evident self- changed thecharacter of the. interest even Dave Spart struggle. would have an easy job. “What it calls for now is an . The killing blow is, of extension ofcollective local course, smearing the RIBA : control over. resources which with its own ‘“‘professional’’ | includes an accountable and ‘label so it appears like any ' freely available design service. other club of hard-nosed pin- It argues that-this can never ‘striped. gents, such as (perish come from a RIBA-style According to NAM, -what the Institute ispresenting as srg community architecture is a watered-down, depoliticised | formula in which private | architects solve their work “‘architectural ‘fund for the -poor serviced by private prac-. titioners on an individual “The RIBA’s major proposal is for a community aid fund to be established, way local control can be the thought) that béte noir of Labour governments, the BMA. NAM claims that ‘the with finance from the created is through local RIBA’s elaborate display of Government to enable the .councils, suitably -restruc- interest in community archi- settiupngof small, area-based tured. tecture is something of a con. architectural advice centres. Brushi ide objecti Also that it stole the idea They see these operating to public design offices as anyway. alongside and in a similar way “It is significant that the to legal advice centres and, RIBA’s proposals _sfor more interestingly, doctors’ based on market ideology and the economic fears of private architects, the report calls for “community architecture” have developed now, when : ‘This latter parallel is architecture, .expecially in the ; important as the assumptions ; )Unpre- cedented crisis. Although there are supporters of CAWG who are genuinely seeking new ways of relating to the community, hard economic logic and self-pre- servation rather than a new humanitariansim appear to lurk behind the present professional vogue for ‘community architecture.”’ underlying it reflect how litle | based set the attitude of the profession has changed. The medical; professional is not renowned' for its openness. Certainly a: more aware public would undermine the professional role of the doctor... .” he surgeries. ; -theinsertionofanothertierof teda directoltyhe chi : The P include ideas for rendering design offices his account its defining more democratic, with group features are that it was’ leaders elected by the groups problems by running state- essentially a .small-scale’ and chief architects elected ae jinics for the | subsidised clinics for activity based on a well- from group leaders. \ defined localitywith architects A special swipe is reserved working directly with local, for intermediate managers difficult time making out a , People. between groups leaders and NAM doesn’t have a veryembarrassingcase.The‘Aboveall,NAM_sceschiefarchitect.© report starts by quoting with community architecture as “Theirs is a non-design: evident relish a RIBA council ' adopting an oppositional function and their status is paper - on community architecture which says: “We must be moving towards an architecture for everyéne, not just those who have the money to pay for it needed to help the poor to acquire the skills of an architect.” stance ‘‘a political as distinct, dependenotn increasing the from a professional matter’’ | proportion of procedural and involving potential conflict' managerial matters under with established patrons of their control.”’ In the design architecture. . The essence ofthis struggle, money an . *Community Architecture. A —| Public Design Service? Public but Design Group, New Architecture ' Movement, 9 Poland Street, DESIGN In NAM’s terms the only including valuers, led by responsible to tHe connatite for the work of the group and team of the elect, salvation is by works. London Wi. £f(00 grouseaiers BUILDING DESIGN, October 13, 1978 .. $0 & national fund is: NAM argues, was about Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Tulloch Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray & John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13 October 1978 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/c26f72f41c2c2ac22b68fb7b9d152409.pdf 42bb141b831baf78304d1da147ca712a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Building Design Article Subject The topic of the resource Opinion piece by Martin Pawley "Why community architecture is a busted flush" (2pp) Description An account of the resource 18 BUILDING DESIGN, February 24, 1989 g A FLUSH is a five-card poker hand with each card belotnotgheisanmegsuit.A bustedflushisafive-card poker hand in which four cards are of the samesuitb,ut the last is different. The ‘bust’? means the difference between success and failure, a five-card flush is a strong hand, a busted flush is worthless _Opinion communi a a a alt|PGure n Ipropose to this house Smmunty architecture is Martin Pawley lost the vote in last week’s International Building Press debate on community archi- ate nat 5to bes: Dr Rod Hackney and his in the community tecture — but made the best speech of the night, published here. ction; entrench that was equivalent to laying tment: pessimism inifesto ontaking of rural¢ ration RIBA The Knav t . {feisrbelideving Rod Hack ON EXPRESS [Enter 19 ENauiny caro On this card is written; “Our nvironment is abattleground forces which threaten and in the end ciety the inner ties bear deep ying housing »vement laid hallengeafewyearsago 44 ynemployment: lack of Marshalls Mono Limited Head Office Southowram S KEYBLOK MONOLOK RUSTIKAL RIALTA ARCADIAN KEYKERB THE MASTER'S DEGREE IN ARCHITECTURE We invite candidates with good first degrees in architecture or an equivalent qualificationtoapply to study of our new Master's Degree. This innovative, high level, part-time course, which Started in 1988, is the only one ofits kind in the UK Itisgearteodtheambitiousandabilitiesofstudents with a passion for design, curiosity about the field of theory and the energy to bring them together with intellectual rigour At the same time, students on the course develop their other professional skills in practice Please send for prospectus and application formto THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, KINGSTON POLYTECHNIC, KNIGHTS PARK, KINGSTON UPON THAMES, SURREY KT1 2QJ. Telephone: (01) 549 6151. Fax: (01) 547 1450 ON EXPRESS Enter Q PNguinY CARD\ ‘a RIW SHEETSEAL Damp Proof Membranes Agrement ap; Sheet fo Danage inappl Small damages are May de used junction with liquid applied products © Ful technical back-up from the RIW Waterproofing . SPECIALISTS IN STRUCTURAL WATERPROOFING PRODUCTS No RIWLimitedArc House, Terrace Road South, BirSeld, Bracknell, Berks, AG12 Tel O44 861988 Telex 847990 Fax 0344 862010 Enter DO. Chane aID\ aa’| yur cards down fa pon the pe ty. Urban regener ni ui civil peaceand liberties. Andit d betting on the unseen Pi tv iftwelare'to retain our not just the cities that are in th i 1 ow. The firstis an crisis. Looking out across th Ace. It shows what Dr Hackney countryside we face the spectre It worth recalling what PSAOSIS ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND THEORY g of their book 1 irchitecture how people are shaping their own environment. Itis a gory rerun of that everything is “appalling” he proposes a “crusade” : inner cities. He talks of raising £30 to £100 million to finance community architecture pro jects like Black Road alloverthe ‘We do not believe that community architecture is equal to the sheer Hackney, is equal to the sheer may have solved a lot of problems for your people. Let's sce how well they do with static Property prices. We do not belicve that de- caying Britain can be put right by a combination of media boosterism, awards, ceremon- ies, celebration dinners, cxag- ated responses to supposed attacks”, verbal exhortations, fitful encouragement by royalty, “alternative” Nobel prizes or 60-minute documentaries about five houses, In other words Mr Wates and Mr Thompson, wedo not believe you have the final card you have. We u are bluffing. Despite Mr Wate unhesitating and shamefulinvocationofurban riot and murder as the only the Broadwater Farm “What had been thought of asa model council estate turned into country. He even calls for a poverty and homelessness created by cessation of large-scale council community architectur police and 20 proach in the City of I had been injured. One where he might have known policeman had been hacked to — the community spirit is 100 death. The senior police officer proof and the governor of the for the area described it as the Bank of England can tell Peter most ferocious, the most vicious Palumbo that he need have no not ever seen in the country.” The third card is, shall we say Ten. It is the card of the where, certainly not any- the contraction of social welfare and house building today bf adeveloperon hth Knaveforw 4 ‘ Ac ehavenow Tu: Not the ¢ but ¢ ly-based enterprise ecople whe ield, is ayo archi | “real tate ket monc but ma afew 1. Ch esident of the RIBA ),000 inner-city houses reliction by all-scale at will se of 1 i-playing municipaliser ci al council. For the chance t build ¢ own urth cardis a King, or rathera environment theway they want utur 3, a “fairy princ ind so create a land as safeand o cares deeply about decay prosperous as Switzerland.” ind riot and archit J not t h T onflict and Thiasqtuite acard;it putsthe ind ractal future Kingto shame. Ifor one ulm here and now put m noney Th re four cards on the the table and say; “Show i ab: dtheoth rplayersturna me.”’ If Dr Hackney, Nick Wates and John Thompson and vhiter shade of pal he their followers were f pared to list councillors are bank- pt, they cannot afford to call this one. The archit adyabouts popu war criminals hiding in the Bolivian jungle. Ift cy fight this ust as We nselves on the mercy Mail. The money men gratefully cut their losses the “spectre decay and riot’ a year or twe spectators, the tribunes of the »wn their claims, then lievable. But eirclaims be? should have their houses the we they want them? nirty families can build emselves new houses in four years? That re is a lot of moncy in home improvement? That local authority tenants are happy about the renovation of s? Th local enterprise akes good teley ision? NoUl ITI (3SOU lt All of these are credible people, what do they think? claims, but in relation to the They focus all their attentioonn scale of the problem they don't the highest c fg the fourth card, the card of add up to a hill of beans ation Community architecture has from Thris a ’ of Aces and Knaves noraks. Besidehimis infrom Maccles- as Noel Coward S a5 colour brochure Oui; This isavery special card. It uture King; he is before an always gone further much further and with much less justification than the old mc ern architects who believed that the solutiontothesame problem laynotincharityandunpaid labour, but in planning and production on the largest pos- ae << n a company Ww} fear of failure, on the very day dy on the Court of mon Council votes for his the cessation of large-scale council house building.’ architect at the Pittsburgh conference described commun- ity architecturaes “an extension of the British class system’ Finally, totally inadequate Vos of talent to sible scale. We know what they Opinion — - shows what Nick Wates and dress, like a stockbroker, Car- artesKnechvoseitotwntriteatriedaway,thefutureKingsays 25millionclaimedbyDrcheap;arisinghousingmarket scale of the £50 billion urban crisis of house price inflation and the so. Indeed you will probably industry, house price inflation and where in America, has itproved recall that an expatriate British tionary myth ofthe move- Mansion House Square project achieved, arate of productionof no objection to people “creat- funding and begging-bowl eco ment. It is the story of how a Al the players and al the new houses more than double ing” their own houses, or their nomics apart, we do not believe z architect returned from Spectators ignore the worrying the present rate, and halfofthem own cars, ortheirown electricity that “Macclesfield technology” at 1andboughtacheap insubstantialityofthisspecial subsidiseddowntorentsthat forthatmatter.Whatweobject makesefficientuseofexpensive house in Macclesfield to live in card, Deep down, they know would not buy a Tube ticket to is outrageous and misleading design expertise or scarce mat- while he c mpleted his PhD that the future King hasnotkept today claims and promises that crowd crial sources — a belief y alternative to community ar- The house was cheap because it alhispromises. One ofhismuch But we on this side of the out the proper consideration of hemently shared by the late chitecture; and despite Mr wascondemned,oneof vauntedfundsforcimmunity housedonotwishtobemis:crucialenvironmentalissuesWalterSegal,whoseworkThompson'spromisethatitisa scheduled for redevelopment enterprise, to which a fair understood. We do not oppose We do not believe that a sharp community architecture propa- certain cure for smoking, we The threat of the bulldozers number of individuals and the idea of anybody “shaping Macclesfield developer can gandists have lately taken to cli your last card will show nterruptedyoungarchibusinessescontributed,btheirownenvironment”orsucceedwherehugesumsofparasathodughiitnweregtheirthatyourhandisvalueless tect’sstudies.Hero’thesackeditsstaffandvirtuallybuildingbette professionallydirectedpublicown Theconsequenceofsittingin apa hetic ho riders and closed down. Another has community 4 investment only barely made We do not believe that you on apoker game played for very ther they a resi- hauled its staff over the coals for gandists put it headway in the past. We do not have a patent on public consul high stakes, with no cards anda t'sassociationéndobtainedmakingloanstocallgirls.Busyprofessionally“misguidedas-belicvethatcommunityarchi-taotrsiweaotenquity—bothofgodlineintalk,isthatsooner general rovement area sta- withorganicfarming,homeo sailants”ordeliberately“tedi- tecture,evenattheundoubtedly whichexistedbeforeyouand orlateryouwillhavpeutuopor tus. By doing st of the work pathic medicine, trade with ously negative critics” We have exaggerated “turnover” of £20- will exist after you. Nor ¢ shut up. And Iam in no doubt th sely ind obtaining Australia, sex lence on mortg $toconvert the houses ty, and interfering in planning believe that your method is which it will be. that whate tenancy to owner on, it is remarkable that he height re King still has time to — they gave the dabble in community archi Hlifeat tecture in the Postman Pat from pr occupa Barber houses 1 cost projected cost of redevelop ment have heard « rid. It not foo much to he Macclesfield miracle the local authority of £127,000, less than half the f the Duchy of Corn $s, thisisthe crucial ind. Without it This was a shot heard round 1 Bakker, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, faith in thefuture Kingisindestructible unted by the spectre of be left to ti yupt © mess that ecay The Knave s. that others make.” nthe echo Look at the tk Only last month in the Sunday have already been t. The Express Mrs Isabella Hageart of Ac 5that “the environment ournalist is abattleground and the land is ays secmsto council housing, the old solu- tion, has become nothing but a table. The fifth card that the backdrof the most vicious gentlemen on the other side of F men have en the house clai »have ntheir The Ten, from uy ¢ in possession must be the Mai N irth c 4 the mn Of what we might Macclesfield tech IBY the ils of urban and rura solution to al Je: They have thems« ves i boastings ime to deal the Hack when he became irethe fourcardsonthe TS.L. ThrislingtonServicesltd TheWhiteHouse Imagine Og scale of the £50 billion urban crisis of poverty and homeless- ness created by the contraction of social welfare and industry, in the UK’s number onemanufacturer Ise inthisfield Soletyourimaginetionrunwild.Calusnowon 164formoredetailsandour 22 SS BUILDING DESIGN, February 24,1989 19 ANAC 20 HighStret Brasted KentrNi6ué Thrislington Partitions ALICE’S ADVENTURES MOI)Nae AN C19; ELTBARS 1Tel1%©)WU)(GIB THE LAMINATED GLASS. again itis Banham who spotsit: “One could nothelpfeeling that this particular garden shed with its rusted bicycle wheels, a battered trumpet, and other homely junk, had been excavated after an atomic holocaust and discovered to be part of a European tradition of site plan- ning that went back to archaic Greece and beyond.” The point being that appeal to the “primitive” in 1950s architectural discourse connoted a whole complex of reservations and attitudes towards moder- engagement. Yetin one work at nism.Ontheonehand,inthe least,theSmithsonsshowedan manner of “40,000 Years’, it extraordinary prescience about keyed into a “Family of Man” anthropology of archetypal and ecumenic form that modified but Mercifully, this story has a happy ending. Apartfromafewbumpsand bruises, our heroine’ fine; thanks to the Solaglas laminateded glass she : collided with. Made from layers of glass and tough plastic, our laminated glass (0224) 034247 (0232) 61021 O51 447 6191 021-327 2095 seuny kept firmly on the outside. Built to withstand bullets from the home-ownership world of the Privatised cighties. For if the stays f (0323)646566 ’ ere Ediaburgh O37 91 security game. Sccuricor. especially young ones, must be a top priority OF course, stubborn rezfusal to fall apart makekse Light may be free to pour through laminated shop windows, the light-fingered, however, are 091-567 1776 (0792) #99217 (0847) 62028 (0904) 690830 be delighted to speak to you. - the street, the community and cluster, the topology of habita- tion, association, and identity: in short, all that was intended for that half-heroic, half-nostalgic Bethnal-Green-in-the-air of IG enthusiasm was wildly optimistic, a kind of technolatry. A future in which consumption knows no limits, in which consumer power could replace political will, ideology, and collective action, yet somehow stil be “on the left”, now looks hopelessly mistaken in a world laminated glass’: mouth(0202)524151 (0274)733400 Bakes hassHieiosil Bristol (0272)#49617 Cambeidge (0223) 247212 bery (0227) 459001 i (0222) 143781 ary (0203) 458021 Deoncamer (0902) $20211 Dandee (0382) 43260/4)268 S . Someone who apPFpreciate: s this StIetl more than anyone is a Solaglas customer with apretty good record for knowing whats what in the accident that immediately after Smithsons went straight with Eamesian collage or Corbusian Scarborough (0723) 378133 Scunthorpe (0724)844793 Seningbowrne (0795)21534 Seuthampton (0703) 331177 Seuthend (0702) 463415 StAwitell (0726)66325 Stoke-on-Trent(O7#2) #22448 Sunderland Swaneee Theree individuaallithsemcl”ai,msof becauseitisclearnowthatmuch ‘ is replicated at the ICA, was Moore, Sutherland, Piper, and than today, but David Mellor’s and the artist's work of giving described by Banham as “a Nash.andeventheFestivalof Catalogueessaysuggeststhat:“In Signsandimagestothestagesof (0253)20106 aNATO TIfl€,OurstrongestglassCan (0204) 20444 051.525 7241 take more knocks than Fort Knox. more stentorian and global key; ilk — now are decried, in one on the other— and espectally in work of 1956 at least, the Sugden thefieldofurbanism—itrevised House,theyproducedanicon the CIAM orthodoxy to the of just that sort of consumer pointofliquidation.Itwasno directionthatinfusedIGenthu- siasms. The irony, however, is their “Patio & Pavilion”, the that it showed no exciting ; intact even if it cracks Falhiek (0324) 21691 Which means, unlike some Forfar (0907)63425 And as well as frustrating Daily Mail Home Exhibition, while in November of the same year, ARK 18 appeared with their article “But Today We Collect Ads”. Coterie If the IG as a whole can be described as a coteric of creative frictions, then those contrarics were nowhere more apparent bought council house, altered (usually hideously) by the owning-proud purchaser. “What IsItThat Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?” asked Richard Hamilton's 1956 Montage. 1989's diy alterations — that’s what! Reflection on this suburban subversion should remind us how far consumer society has come since the fifties. In many other glass, it won't splinter into shards that maim. Or possibly kil And thats why 95% of al car windscreens are laminated 041.336 BSAA Grimaby (0472) 351378 Guildford (0483) $72922 criminals, we make fires rage too. Our fire-resistant laminated glass can confounda conflagration forup to an hour. Mull it over. When you next ; specify glass, cither for a com- mercial or a domestic environment, your decision whether to choose. Solaplas laminated glass may have an awful lot resting on it. If yyou'd like to make the world Alice's real-life counterparts), please give one of our branches a call. They'd In the UK, 30,000 accidents* Lincoln (052)539131 ways the IG typified the influx of withinasinglepracticethanin provincialtalentofthattime, Liverpol 051-228 2696 involving glass occur in the home e 051-220 8171 Usedudne (0492) #523 every year; so protecting lives, Londe 01-928 $010 Londonderry (0504)43191 Malton Keynes (0908) $6477 Newcastle 91-266 6217 Newton Abbot (0626) 68919 Norshan peon (0604) 53924 (0465) 774317 Pererborough (0733) 63045 Plymouth (0752) 390123 Fecetetm.meth (e0e78n3)anSieeates the work of the Smithsons. On the one hand their “ideal home” took as its modus operandi the extrapolation of current state of-the-art techniques to the level of expendability and thrown- away aesthetics (a term of Banham’s) based on marketing stereotypes and the “nextstep”, along the lines of the fashion industry (theorized for the IG by Tony Del Renzio). But on the other there was, opposed to such nomadic “mass and bearing in mind the northern origins of many of its practitio- ners, the new brutalism might be said to have been the last expression ofadefinably North-of- England outlook in the national culture. As Denise Scott Brown puts it: “When the Beatles arrived on the scene, they too looked familiar, a second cul- tural import from the north.” The IG clementofthe existential, the realist, and the “brutal” deserves to be emphasised Mall (0482) 23432 (0483) 239439 (0475) 484ne Wight (0983) $22288 (0563) 29218 01.549 4900 aly (0592) $5311 ster (0553)734499 eos » Head over heels, in fact. Glass and Glaring Federation fgures for domestic accidents involving broken glas York GiaesmehthewovksbentservicebashedHt filledoutwiththeanarchicand matiofnsu,chavisionhasbeen Exhibitions “The Museum Without Walls” united from the start in resisting amorphous, skinned, visceral, by Andre Malraux, whom the the “yokelry” of 1940s neo- variable, flux, nebular, iri- individual inputs: “For in this IGwantedtoinvitetoopentheir romanticism—thecultofa descence,hyperspace,freefal way,thearchitects’workof 1953 exhibition “The Parallel Of national mythic landscape that Then, in the “Age of Anxiety”, Providing a context for the Life And Art”. This show, which they felt permeated the work of this was more commented upon individual to realise himself in, Supcerinclusive collection of ex- Britain. Yet they were not above this ‘imaginatioonf disaster’ that this realisation, mect ina single Was active in Britain during the act, full of those inconsistencies fifties there was arepressed ele and apparent irrelevancies of ment — the atomic futures. But every moment, but full of life.”” traordinary imagery”. It made making their own myths. Onc in @ total imagerial environment particular, that urban-primitive from a multifaceted display of cult ofa working-class existential enlarged photos and reproduc- h Corbusian dul this cultural phor islegible Richard Hamilton describes tions, drawing material from anthropos that became known, anatomy,architecatrtu,rmeic,ro half-jokinglya,s“thenewbruta- and macrostructure, movement lism”, cast a major weather-front inbrutalist workinst,he scarred the Patio as a “defensive landscape and geology, cal across the English architectural motif of the apocalyptic sub- of the human impulse toa post- graphy, anthropology andergo- nomics into a mobile scanning of cognitive and aesthetic con- nections. Banham wrote of it: “The photograph, being an _ The strain of IG primitivism artefact, applies its own laws of lime.” As Nigel Henderson said: “I is apparent enough at the ICA; artefaction to the material it it is palpable in the elemental feel happiest among discarded things, vituperative fragments filled with brash ephemera, to cast casually from life, with the other planets, a cultural space- fizz of vitality stil about them”. ship going who knows where". landscape. Primitivism atomic carth, adying world filled with rare fossils and touching memories. Whereas the cabinet of Dr Voelcker, was taking off, documents,anddiscoverssimi- orgaofn“biruts”pmigsmentin relatedtothemoreaffirmative larities and parallels between the the paintings of Magda Cordell, documentations, even where the conglomerate totems, simul- ment,theSmithsonsfromthat point began to withdraw from the Pop tendencies that led to Archigram. According to Denise Scott Brown’s thoughtful memoir, Learning From Bruta- lism, they also withdrew from Suggestive of an architect who what they called “active socio- none exists between the objects and the events recorded.” tancously prehistoric and post- nuclear, haptic and hiroshimoid, of Paolozzi, McHall and Turn- realistic social programme of the architects is less easy to see in the exhibition, though James Stirling's “bubble sculpture” for “This isTomorrow" looks bug- The second reason for refer- ‘ ringto“40,000YearsOfModern bull.Theirconnecttiootnhe hi- eyed and bowellist cnough, Art” is that it established an tech, consumer-serendipity abiding primitivism that per- meated much of the IG despite and through all ofits enthusiasms for advanced technology and nology of the future listed by urbanised life. IG Members were strain in the IG ae through the detour of the Sci-Fi — the bug- eyed monster, and the phenome- was to undergo more than one or two mutations, The connec- tion, of course, is there in the “Patio & Pavilion’, and once beauty emergent from designing Alloway: “Solar, delta, galactic, and building inastraightforward way, forcommunity lifeasitis, not for some sentimentalized version of how it should be: “Brutalism’s attempt to be objective about ‘reality’ tries to face up to a mass-production society and drag a rough poetry out of the confused and powerful forces which are at work.” Beatles 458844. Enter 1 5 ON EXPRESS ENQUIRY CARD. hedonistic gestures of an affluent individualism. When the Smith- sons described their “Patio & Pavilion” to the BBC in 1955, they invoked a like balance of collective, or rational, and appropriated by the Thatcher Government. The Independent Group: post-war Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, runs at the ICA until April evidenceofdetritusfollowingthe stockade,ashelterinaprotected releaseofhideousenergy,the garden—classicrepresentation How this saturnine mood And despite the “Ads” state- Smithsons’ collective projects — continued modernism in the Robin Hood Gardens and their Team 10 to Dubrovnik, the last CIAM. Yet this was only months after they had displayed their form, but was simply an ordinary fiftieshouse adaptedto brutalist order. In fact, it resembles “House of The Future” at the nothing so much as a tenant- Golden Lane (1952). This was Coronation Street-meets- Corbusier, perhaps the one point where a socialist framework of where the “hegemony”, or collective values was directly project of consent and legiti- plastics”, the finding of value and delight in places and things other architects found ugly, and Scott Brown regrets this withdrawal from sociological BUILDING DESIGN, February 23,1990 19 it the perfect way to safeguard a safer place (especially for property as well. For expert advice on al aspects of glas and glazing please cal our Technical Advisory Service on (0203) 20 BUILDING DESIGN, February 23, 1990 Mexx recept IT tak Mexx: view intoreception ‘Westminster schol: laboratory refurbishment. They have both obviously sorbed the influence exerted and w wdget control is a grucial (0 the success o! n’tafford n 8 fow their trollable warmth and hot water readily at hand. Whatever the size of your building, electricity canprovidecost- ctive heating. And your local Electricity business can give you al the advice you need. Because what they're ofering isateam efort. Working with you too find the best solution for your busines. maintenance costs, as well as the added economy of using _Storageheater low-costnight-rate |electricity. And whichever form of electric heating you choose, you can have a total system matched to your needs. Fil in the coupon for more information or contact the Ene: rgy Marketing Manager at your loacal to be extravagant. ySuvetural bude McAslan & Partners w 20d to note that Weston and Again,forlargerrequirementsyou can take advantage of the larger heaters, warnsagainst“over-engincer- develop ing”forthesakeoforiginality senseofresponsibilityf Engineering is only part of it, designed details and finishes worked on thi -rPateria Unitwith And so it is with modern electric spac and water heaters. Efficient, con- with savings in capital, instalation and Heroes: (Rostrum January19), then it there are no long energy-wasting Pipe runs, they are economical to. t i an ex-Hopkins man. But F ~~) Practiceprofile= _GOING INTO DET. The best teamwork in the worst conditions. The bobsleigh team A. perfect example of the efective use of energy inthecold, Fast acting quartz linear heaters, Electricity business for example, can provide heat either After al, wouldn't you like life to intermittently or in specific a as. be thar litle bit more comfortable. And where heat is ni ded over long periods, storage heaters realy comeintotheirown.Becausethey |ene make ful use of low-cost night-rate electricity to store heat and then release itgradually during the day. Compact el ctric water heaters can | be installed almost anywhere. On the wall, or under the sink. And because 12 ston JELECTRIC LET'S WORK TOGETHER - writes Clare Melhuish. } Sophistication can be quite ‘The restructureof the internal fex, alowingforofice nality through anumber of small projects for refurbishmenatnd adaptation of existing buildings. BUILDING DESIGN, February 23,1990 21 Weston Williamson have developed a distinctive modern style which has already won them three competitions, us from page 21 a Victorian prison as a graphic design studio involved the con struction of a glazed conserv toryoverlothoekcoiurntyagrds, black-stained ash with frosted glass pancls, materials used and possible conflict, into the throughout the rest of the composition intenor The double-height space Of the three recent competi tion wins, one, for Marketplace advertising agency, is another was exploited by the insertion of two mezzanines divided by refurbishment job. The existing an acoustic glass screen. Light fittings double up as sunshades for the glass roof A laboratory refurbishment for Westminster School, acom mission won on the basts of an warehouse in Bermondsey, dat- ing from 1903, impressed the architects by its “amazing re- servesof strength’’, They willbe retaining the open-plan space, supported by circular cast-iron columns, installing new services, and adding a new four-storey extension with an external lift Atroof-level, a glazed conference room will constitute a contrast- ing lightweight clement into the overall character of the building. As with past projects, the architects will also be designing the furniture provided an opport ’ plore the possibiliotfiperesfy ricallaequtipmientnangdcom ponent units off site, within a tight time-scale of cight months. The result was the subtle trans- lation of a 1930s office block into a “hi-tech” environment, a “spac © image’’, conjured entirely out of standard parts, A Birkin Haward and Richard significant element of this change MacCormac, is an interesting was the glazing of the side walls development of the previous St Augustine's church repre- church project, and one which sented a rather different chal- but with the same issue at a fight for quality of environment, achieved through effective organisation of space and light, and well-designed furniture and fittings At St Augustine's, this involved the tactful division of the existing church into two parts: a worship area and acommunity centre This project also entailed a serious consideration of the esthetic aspects of working with =—L1 the architects find particularly stimulating, being quite different from the standard commercial brief. A whole new range of criteria is involved In this case, the PCC (Paro- chial Church Council) requires an extension housing a new ance area and link between ch and enlarged church iding a church “centre” can accommodate wide ecular functiaosnwesll as worship. Thecouncil actually 1 | fai TheProfileAceptor’anexcitingnew ~ im! LT} Introducing the factory finish hanentprofilewhichtsbuiltinkeatraditionalwindowframe.andforms an exact a — Tilbury: ground-floor plan, an existing and historic building Thearchoiptetdetoccotnstsruct anew entrance porch inknappe flint and dressed stone, matching the original structure, rather than introduce any strong contrast, St John’s church, Pinner, a project Won in competition with pening. Al des (including plastering) required on completed be eliminating many risks, time delays 2 St John’s Pinner: concept sketch 22 BUILDING DESIGN, February 23, 1990 Practice profile St THE HOLE THING BEES ; A beautifully simple way Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource BD Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 24/02/1989