London Region needs a shake-up

Letter of the week

In this instance a number of representatives of the various groups that make up the London Region gathered together and spent the whole day selecting a number of potential prizewinners. The best scheme, we decided, was an industrial building by a not-high-profile young architect. Not much to our collective surprise, however, we subsequently discovered that our choice had been overridden by an anonymous group at head office.

Such events do appear to be quite standard and, because of such experiences, it has long been my certainty that the whole structure of London Region — where in fact most architects live and work — is quite archaic leading to just such happenings where RIBA matters can be, in my opinion, totally undemocratic.

Some may recall perhaps that I campaigned some years ago, albeit unsuccessfully, in a wish to help to bring about reform. I still firmly recommend that London Region (with its myriad of not-very-representative satellites) be totally abolished, following which it would be a very simple matter to, say, quarter the whole of London as it lies within the M25 motorway, where the four districts so formed could radiate from a point somewhere in the centre — say Piccadilly.

In this way it would not matter where members either live or work and, since most public transport is directly in or out of the centre, truly representative communication would be easy, and be democratically pertinent. Things could certainly hardly be any worse than they are at present where, by structure, members are divided into often quite irrelevant groups — “classed by ghetto” as it were.

All organisations tend to become centralised and hierarchical; perhaps, by bringing about such reforms, the RIBA could become rather less like this — I would think to everyone’s benefit.

Peter Deakins
London SW11