That’s how the light gets in

It’s hard to know how to respond properly to the recent Bartlett report. At first glance, the kinds of bullying and gaslighting exposed at UCL all sound depressingly familiar to any student with an interest in traditional architecture. But to see that it was so much more widespread and serious, puts in the shade the bullying that trads have to endure regularly. Being targeted and suffering discrimination for having different intellectual views or opinions on a subject is one thing, but to suffer far worse, simply for your gender, your skin colour, your nationality or your perceived social class is just on another level.

Traditional architects have long been the canary in the coalmine of architectural education as they have been first to indicate that there is something seriously wrong with the system. But their complaints have fallen on deaf ears and they have become used to being accused of having a deviant and corruptive influence on fellow students. To traditional architects, the current architectural education system makes no sense, and that’s perfectly fine on one level. Architecture education today is completely modernist focused, and traditional architecture cannot be shoe-horned into a system that it is wholly incompatible with. What would actually make sense is a separate system for traditional architecture that could tap into the hunger for traditionalism amongst clients and students alike. But as we all know, the choice to study traditional architecture has long been forbidden and to even suggest that this option should exist at all is considered to be heresy to the dogma that is fundamentalist modernism.

But that begs the question, what is current architectural education actually teaching? It seems to me that there is this enormous vacuum in architectural education. Many teachers seem to believe that architecture is something that cannot be directly taught in the way that most would imagine it. Instead they believe that architectural skill is something inate and that architectural education is about provoking that skill to the surface, by brutally trimming away all other factors. Because these teachers have been taught very little in their own education, they only know how do what it takes to get by. This is what they experienced in their own education and this is what has propelled them to their position so this is what they teach. And like all bullies they are weak, afriad and insecure. They are afraid that they will be found out. They are afraid of anyone with real talent who might show them up. They are afraid of anyone who might be different to them because they are so ignorant themselves.

So, how is this vacuum filled, where does this lack of any real substance leave students, and therefore how can architectural students be assessed at all? It seems to me that current architectural education comes down to enabling and rewarding two types of students; those with the greatest blind self-belief regardless of any actual skill or knowledge, and those who are most willing to bend and comply to the ever-changing whims of their leaders. An architectural education system that does not believe in teaching can only produce people who are willing to succeed at all costs, and those who can only toe the line; in other words, cruel bullies and spineless sycophants. Basically, it is a dogfight. A dogfight that results in a lot of very damaged people, or some who simply don’t survive at all.

For students who have an interest in traditional precedent and who have a natural feel for the craft of architectural composition, this approach is completely insane. Many just have to play along, keep their heads down, mask their natural skills that might mark them as targets, because targets are exactly what their teachers are looking for. They are looking for perceived weaknesses to expose and exploit in the belief that by doing so they are weeding out the weak, and rewarding the strongest and the most compliant. By behaving so abominably they honestly believe that they are doing the right thing, that they are serving the greater good of architecture.

So, what has traditional architecture got to do with this? After reading the Bartlett report I realised that a large part of the motivation behind my activism in promoting traditional architecture has been about combatting this exact issue. My experience of architectural education was more disappointing than abusive. At its very worst it was humiliating and bewildering, but through some weird sequence of events, that damage was healed through craft, archaeology and traditional architecture. I naively thought that architectural education could be healed as well by opening itself up to these same forces that helped me. Never in my wildest nightmares could I imagine the rot was so deep.

The sad truth is that a culture like that exposed at the Bartlett school is not unique, it is the direct and ultimate result of the modernist philosophy playing itself out. Modernist philosphy and its’ resultant toxic culture is replicated across architectural education and the profession. Any philosophy that imposes mandatory destruction and amnesia can only lead to a culture that rewards power and submission. Architecture today is a cult, and the its’ education system is the cruel initiation ritual that it uses to perpetuate itself.

After reading this report, I felt a weird sense of relief too, that this was finally being exposed, that the goals I was fighting for are the goals of many, many more people than I realised. This diversity of new voices is a blessing for traditional architects who simply want to be able to express themselves too. It’s good to know that we are not alone and that there are so many more who will now grow to believe that it is possible to not self-censor and speak from the heart.

This report feels like a good start, but it also spells the end of something for me. I have invested an unfathomable amount of time, effort and emotional capital in architecture over the years and although I’ve never asked for anything in return, I never thought it would take so much from me too. I never thought that wanting better architecture would be such a vicious fight and I really don’t know if I have achieved anything despite so much sacrifice. To those who are taking this issue on, I have so much respect and you have my full support. But to be brutally honest, for myself it feels like it has all been a colossal waste.

It’s impossible to fight against a culture that hides its’ weakness and fear behind a wall of ignorance and arrogance. There are positive indicators of change on the horizon, but here in Ireland the industry that has built up around that culture will fiercely resist any change. That culture starts with the corrupt quarry owners and negligent cladding manufacturers, to the greedy developers, entitled politicians, back-slapping academics and officials, and the cruel, trad-bashing, clueless cheerleaders that proliferate online. But if this is the way that they want things to be, who am I to try to save them from themselves? How was I ever going to make a change against odds like that?