What’s in a name… Do the public really understand what it means to be an ‘architect’?

To be able to call oneself an architect implies being an individual with a rigorous technical and academic education with defined and supervised practical experience. To call oneself an architectural designer… that could be anyone with a sketch-up licence. Building Design readers know this – but does anyone else?

Aside from the possible commercial weight of the word “architect”, there is the emotional weight. Chris Williamson noted his sadness once he was removed from the register this month, and I understand this.

It is a word to which architects aspire from their mid-teens, a word they have battled financially and emotionally to use. It is a hard word to give up, or to admit that perhaps it has less meaning than we have convinced ourselves that it does.

Whatever else, this news is – or becomes over the next few months – it is much more than a fight between the RIBA and the ARB. We could have hoped for a clearer plan of action from the RIBA or more realistic objectives, but that is not how they are choosing to play this. But bear with me; we need to remind ourselves of the context.

Getting to the protection of title in the Architects Act of 1938 was a hard-fought battle in which architects, frankly, disgraced themselves. Statutory registration of architects bills were introduced into parliament in 1889, 1890, 1892, 1895, 1900 and 1903 all to no effect.

The First World War interrupted the beginnings of the next tranche of attempts but, in 1920, the RIBA formed a registration and unification committee, promptly followed by four years of in-fighting within the profession over whether this was the correct body to lobby on behalf of architects (architects are nothing if not consistently useless at effective collective action).

Eventually a draft bill was drawn up in 1925, which caused a further split (between architects who also practised surveying and those who did not). I will note that in the 1920s this was a profession already split along lines of public and private architects, with a further split between those who held different stylistic opinions as regards traditional or modernist design (does this sound at all familiar?!).

The in-fighting lent no constructive progress to the profession, but did allow external forces to conclude that architects were not sufficiently professional, organised or serious enough to have reserved functions

All a bit of a mess. The in-fighting lent no constructive progress to the profession, but did allow external forces to conclude that architects were not sufficiently professional, organised or serious enough to have reserved functions.

This bill was eventually put before parliament in 1927. It failed to pass. Other bills were introduced between 1927 and 1929, also failing to pass.

Then, as now, there remained the issue that the acceptance of a qualified individual onto the register is not a guarantee of their quality or competence to practise. A bad architect is equally capable of entry as a good one, and MPs expressed disquiet over the high pass rate of RIBA exams – were such qualifications worthy of official protection?

On changing the protection in the act from “architect” to “registered architect”, it was finally passed in 1927 – making the principle of registration voluntary. Royal assent was given in 1931, suggesting this was clearly not a political priority, creating the Architects Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARKUK, a precursor of ARB) to hold the register.

Further lobbying, further infighting (including an anti-RIBA leaflet distributed to MPs by rival societies) and The Architects (Registration) Act was passed in 1938, finally restricting the use of the title “architect” to those on the register. The RIBA went on to state in 1948 that “the ultimate objective is naturally to prevent anyone performing the duties of an architect unless [they are] registered”, but the following decades show this to be a political impossibility.

Our current 1997 Architects Act largely took this earlier legislation forwards, but aligned Britain with the European Union’s Mutual Recognition of Qualifications Directive. In real terms though, the title “architect” is largely meaningless – we don’t need to use it to practise architecture. Anyone can submit a planning or building regulation application.

The Architects Act 1997 which protects the use of the title was never intended as a full solution to the problem of public safety around architectural services and currently serves no one well

Even the Building Safety Act only limits designers to “competent” people – there is no link to the title “architect”. The Architects Act 1997 which protects the use of the title was never intended as a full solution to the problem of public safety around architectural services and currently serves no one well.

The Grenfell Inquiry goes so far as to say that: “There is also no consistent definition or enforcement of competence, or standards for public accountability… As a result, there is generally insufficient recognition and benefit for those who do the right thing and limited consequences for those who do not, with wider implications for skills, development and overall productivity.”

However, those looking to the bright headlines suggesting that protection of function may be back on the agenda should not celebrate yet. Reading through the MHCLG prospectus it seems that ministers are considering this problem from the side of further increasing the competency of building professionals.

This does not actively change the position we are currently in, and will be ultimately pointless as the public are not obliged to use the professionals the MHCLG wishes  to regulate. If the government determines these skillsets sufficiently important to define and monitor, it should also be defining and monitoring who is able to carry them out. Anyone who is replying to the consultation should consider this in their response.

It is in this context that we need to consider Williamson’s decision. This is not about the ARB and RIBA fighting for dominance, or the tensions between those in small practices and those (such as Williamson) who are perceived to be in a more comfortable, complacent, position in large practices. To take either of these positions entirely misses the point and repeats the petty infighting that has characterised far too much of our profession’s past and led to the failure of the early 20th-century battles for protection of function.

Reaching anything close to protection of function will be difficult, especially with a government so worried by opinion polls that every policy is shaped by its impact on the government’s chances of survival for another couple of months

Protection of function in the 21st century is not about commercial protectionism. This is not about ARB fees or whether it is “fair” if someone else can also draw plans, submit planning applications, or the commercial pressure of different scales of architectural practice. This is about a clear danger to a commissioning public that is considerably less aware than commissioning clients were in the past about what an architect is, what they do, and what qualifications they should hold.

Combine this with the ever increasing technical and regulatory complexity of the industry and the risks to these clients are not purely ones of finances or convenience. There are safety risks to the general public that have been devastatingly demonstrated by headlines in recent years.

Reaching anything close to protection of function will be difficult, especially with a government so worried by opinion polls that every policy is shaped by its impact on the government’s chances of survival for another couple of months. I do not see architectural protection of function being high on anyone’s agenda.

We need to learn from the mistakes of our past and communicate the wider picture – or miss the moment in which we can best demonstrate our value to, and care of, the people who use the buildings we love to design.