THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS AND ITS CRITICS.5 Fox
the last two years, architects have been sharply divided by a family quarrel in which, roughly speaking, those who are artists as well as architects are on one side, and those who are " architects " without being artists are on the other. The book before us is the manifesto of the artists, addressed now to the public, and this article will attempt to explain to the general reader the matter in dispute. The book, as a mani- festo, is a little cumbrous. The editors would have done better by lightening their ship of superfluous cargo ; some of the essays are needless or not to the point, parts of many are confused in thought or expression ; a more rigorous redaction, or a restatement from a single pen of the chief matter at issue, would have made the whole more effective. Mr. T. G. Jackson or Mr. Reginald Blom field, who are the most businesslike of the writers, might with advantage draw up a short pamphlet giving the necessary facts and documents and arguments. The chief issue is the exami- nation system of the Institute, two questions arising :- (1.) Whether those examinations ought to be compulsory on all who seek its membership. (2.) Whether membership (thus conditioned) ought to be compulsory on all architects, or, as the writers put it, whether architecture should be made a close profession. At the present moment, the examination is compulsory on all who enter the Institute, but there is no legal obstacle to any outsider who chooses calling himself an " architect," and practising as such.
The discussion came to a head in the following way. In the spring of 1891 a Bill was introduced into Parliament for making registration and diploma a necessary qualification for practice in architecture, just as they are legally necessary for practice in physic. It was professedly promoted on that analogy, as a measure for a protection to the public against unqualified architects. It was promptly protested against by several eminent architects, and other artists, and was defeated before a second reading. Its defeat, however, was partly due to the influence of members of the Institute, not because they objected to such a scheme in itself, but because they objected to the registration and diploma not being in the hands of their own body, and hoped one day to see the Institute carry out such a scheme itself. The memorialists against the Bill were equally hostile to this supposed plan of the Institute, which they thought had already gone too far in making its examination compulsory on its own members. With this feeling, certain members of the Institute sympathised, and the result was a considerable secession from its ranks. Before dealing with the quality and arguments of the memorialists and seceders, it will be well to explain the part the Institute has played in architectural matters.
The Institute of British Architects was formed under Wil- liam IV. of a body of gentlemen interested in architecture, and was incorporated by charter in 1837. This charter was modified in some respects in 1886 under the reigning Sovereign, and the title " Royal " was given to the Corpora- tion. By its constitution, members consist of Fellows and Associates, who are entitled to add the letters F.R.I.B.A. and A.R.I.B.A. to their names. The Associates are ordi- nary members ; Fellows are chosen from the older and better-known members of the profession. The number of Fellows and Associates is not limited, so the Institute avoids the most vicious academic type as we have it in our Royal Academy, and approaches rather to diploma-giving bodies like the Royal College of Surgeons. Its type at the outset was that of a scholarly association interested in the history and archeology of the art, and with an authority on questions of professional etiquette and procedure. So far they were harmless enough, and even useful, with their library for reference and their meetings for lectures and discussions. Moreover, they came to possess and dispense certain distinc- tions, medals, and scholarships, which gave them an inciting and directing power over the studies of the younger men. They have never themselves organised instruction ; that was left to the Academy School, and to the younger body calling itself the Architectural Association. But there grew up under their control a system of examination which has altered the original type of the Institute, and whose * Architecture : a Profession or an Art. Thirteen Short Essays on the Quali- fication and Training of Architects. Edited by B. Norman Shaw, B.A., and T. G. Jackson, A.B.A.London : John Murray. 1892. development has given rise to the present dispute. At first the examination was unobjectionable. It was completely voluntary, an elementary test which any student might undergo at will. Then it became the compulsory test for entrance to the Institute, and the contention of the writers of the book before us is that this in itself is undesirable, and is a step to something even more so, namely, the making of the asso- ciateship thus attained a necessary qualification for practising architects.
At this point, before the arguments for or against compul- sory registration are considered, it may be asked with what authority do the members of the Institute, on the one part, and the memorialists and seceders, on the other, speak for their profession (or "craft," or "mystery," or what- ever else it pleases them to call it) P That question can be very briefly and decisively answered. The best English architects of our day are, almost without exception, to be found outside the Institute. To any one with a know- ledge of the art, it is enough to name Messrs. Norman Shaw, John Bentley, G. F. Bodley, Philip Webb, T. G. Jack- son, and Basil Champneys. Further, the seceders from the Institute have robbed it of some of the most promising men of a younger generation. Who remain P One or two men whom it is possible to describe as artists, a number of suc- cessful business-men, from whose offices proceeds the bulk of the " architecture " that disfigures our country, a number of less prominent mediocrities, and a large tail of men nominally architects, who are not really architects at all, but surveyors ; that is, they are engaged in the semi-commercial, semi-legal business that skirts architecture proper. Of the total number of members, about half are surveyors. A review, then, of the actual personnel of the Institute leads to the conclusion that the pre- sent value of the letters A.R.I.B.A. is a very doubtful quantity, that so far as they denote an architect at all, their effect is to give fictitious value to mediocrity. For the public they carry a vague traditional prestige, and for that reason they are tempting to the unknown beginner ; but no architect would attach the slightest importance to the possession of them by an applicant for admission to his office.
So much for the actual authority of the Institute and its opponents. What of the theoretical case for making archi- tecture a close profession like law or physic P The argument for, is to this effect. Architecture, it is contended, and with perfect truth, is not a free art like painting or sculpture, but one in which the artist, besides pleasing his own sense of beauty, must meet the wishes of his client by producing a convenient building, and the demands of public safety, by producing a building that is securely constructed and pro- perly drained. Further, he ought to be a man with knowledge of the cost of building, and with business habits. The public cannot very well be guaranteed an artist to design a building, nor can examination very well test such powers ; but it can be guaranteed, it is argued, protection against danger to life and health by having to do only with architects duly qualified in all this scientific and utilitarian side of the business. " We'll do our best," the Institute says, in effect, " that the man shall be an artist—he shall answer a little paper about the Parthenon and the Pyramids—but, after all, that is not the essential thing; and what we do guarantee is that he shall be a scientific builder and an honest plumber. By A.R.I.B.A. to an architect's name, you may understand that your walls will be safe, and your drains all right." Therefore, the argument runs, let all professing architects pass an examina- tion in construction and sanitation and etiquette, and you will be as safe against the quack in architecture as you are already against the quack in medicine.
To this the reply is fourfold :-
(1.) From the nature of the examination. An answer to the few elementary questions on construction, building materials, and sanitation set in the Institute papers cannot be regarded as giving any such qualification to the pupil or protection to the public as is spoken of. A little work at text-books will enable a boy to pass, but will carry him a very short way when he comes to tackle the real problems.
(2.) From experience. Experience has not shown that the knowledge involved in passing these examinations is a guarantee. You may be a member of the Institute, and yet a very poor practical builder, as well as an incapable designer. An A.R.I.B.A. is possibly not an artist, possibly not even a plumber.
(3.) The protection is already provided for, as far as it can be by legal enactment, in the existence of local surveyors of building and sanitary inspectors. The fact that, with all this apparatus of building-police, our walls are jerry-built, and our drains frequently do not exist, does not encourage us to hope that a diploma the more will much improve matters. It is carelessness and dishonesty on the part of the constructor, and desire for cheapness on the part of the customer, that account for the failure, much more than ignorance on the part of the former. The jerry-builder knows how to build better than most architects.
(4) And this leads to a reductio ad absurdum of the scheme. What is the use of making all architects undergo this com- pulsory test, when the great majority of our buildings are not designed by architects at all P Most of them are put up by the speculative builder, who does not employ an architect. Against him, then, the scheme will not protect us. To be logical, the examination and diploma proposed ought to be open to or be imposed upon all who construct buildings. When challenged so to throw open its examination, the Insti- tute has made no response. The writers of the book before us are not against a voluntary examination, with a certificate bearing on its face the fact that it was for knowledge of construction or plumbing, but they are strongly of opinion that the tendency of the Institute's present policy is to make professional status the aim of the architect instead of artistic feeling, that the talk of protection for the public is only a blind for this, and that the process of cramming for examinations will waste time that the student might better spend in the real discipline of 'prenticeship. Into this positive side of the argument, however, there is no space here to enter.
Previous page
